Florida has no separate set of rules for wealthy families. The same statutes govern every divorce. What changes when the assets are significant is the cost of a mistake. A single transfer, a careless email, or a business valued the wrong way can move more money than the entire legal fee. Most of those mistakes happen early, often before a petition is filed. These are the do's and don'ts we walk clients through first.
What makes a divorce high asset in Florida
There is no dollar figure in the statutes. A divorce becomes high asset in practice when the property is hard to identify, hard to value, or hard to divide: a closely held business or professional practice, more than one home, brokerage and retirement accounts, stock options or restricted stock, deferred compensation, trusts, inheritances, or a premarital agreement.
Florida Statute § 61.075 tells the court to start from an equal division of the marital estate, and then allows an unequal division only when the statutory factors justify it. Equal does not mean every asset is cut in half. It means the total value each spouse receives starts out the same, which is why identifying and valuing each asset correctly decides the outcome.
Do: get the financial paperwork organized before you file
Family Law Rule of Procedure 12.285 requires both spouses to exchange mandatory financial disclosure within 45 days of service of the petition. A spouse with income of $50,000 or more files the long-form financial affidavit, which lists every asset, debt, and source of income under oath.
Gathering the records before the case starts saves time and money, and it protects you if documents later go missing. Collect at least the following:
- Three years of personal and business tax returns, with every schedule and K-1
- Twelve months of statements for every bank, brokerage, retirement, and crypto account
- Deeds, mortgage statements, and leases for every property
- Operating agreements, shareholder agreements, and recent financial statements for any business
- Stock option, restricted stock, bonus, and deferred compensation plan documents
- Any premarital or postmarital agreement, and the disclosures exchanged when it was signed
- Trust documents, and records showing the source of any inheritance or gift
Do: separate what is marital from what is yours
Florida Statute § 61.075(6) draws the line. Assets and debts acquired during the marriage are generally marital. Assets owned before the marriage, and assets received individually by gift or inheritance, are generally nonmarital and stay with the spouse who owns them.
The line blurs fast. When a nonmarital asset grows in value because of either spouse's work during the marriage, or because marital money was put into it, that enhancement can be marital. A premarital home whose mortgage was paid down with marital income, or a family business one spouse built up during the marriage, are common examples. The spouse claiming an asset is nonmarital has to trace it, and the records that prove the trace are often years old.
Do: have hard assets valued by the right professionals
A business, a professional practice, real estate, and equity compensation each call for a different kind of valuation. In larger cases that usually means a forensic accountant or business valuation expert, and sometimes a real estate appraiser, retained early enough to review the records properly.
Florida law also separates two kinds of goodwill in a business. Enterprise goodwill, the value that belongs to the business itself, can be divided. Personal goodwill, the value that exists only because of one spouse's own skill and reputation, is not divided as a marital asset under Thompson v. Thompson, 576 So. 2d 267 (Fla. 1991). How a valuation treats that difference can swing the number by a large amount.
Timing matters as well. Under Florida Statute § 61.075(7), the cutoff for deciding which assets are marital is the earlier of a valid separation agreement or the filing of the petition, while the date used to value each asset is the date the judge finds just and equitable. When markets or a business are moving, which date applies is worth arguing about.
Do: think about taxes before you agree to a split
Two assets with the same value on paper can be worth very different amounts after tax. Transfers between spouses as part of a divorce are generally not taxed at the time of transfer under Internal Revenue Code § 1041, but the spouse who receives an asset also receives its built-in gain. A brokerage account bought years ago and an equal amount of cash are not the same thing.
Retirement plans need their own care. Dividing most employer plans requires a qualified domestic relations order, and taking the money out the wrong way can trigger taxes and penalties. For divorces finalized after 2018, alimony is no longer deductible for the paying spouse or taxable income for the receiving spouse under federal law, which changes how support and property trade off against each other.
Don't: move, spend, or hide money
This is the mistake that does the most damage. Florida Statute § 61.075(1)(i) lets the court consider the intentional dissipation, waste, depletion, or destruction of marital assets after the petition is filed or within 2 years before it was filed. In practice the court can charge the missing money against the share of the spouse who spent it.
Large cash withdrawals, transfers to relatives, a sudden drop in business revenue right after filing, or new accounts that do not appear on a financial affidavit are exactly what forensic accountants look for. A sworn financial affidavit that leaves something out damages credibility on every other issue in the case, including the children.
Don't: make major financial moves without advice
Retitling property, transferring business interests, creating a new trust, taking on large new debt, or changing how you are paid all look different once a divorce is underway. Even a move with a legitimate reason can be challenged, unwound, or held against you if it is made quietly. Talk to your attorney first, and put the reason in writing.
Don't: put the case in writing where it can be used
Texts, emails, and social media posts are evidence. Posts about a new purchase, a vacation, or a business deal can contradict a financial affidavit or a claim of need. Messages sent in anger to a spouse are routinely attached to motions. Write every message as if the judge will read it, because the judge may.
Don't: assume alimony still works the old way
Florida changed its alimony law in 2023. Florida Statute § 61.08 no longer allows permanent alimony. The available forms are temporary, bridge-the-gap, rehabilitative, and durational alimony, and the court must first find that one spouse has an actual need and the other has the ability to pay.
Durational alimony now has limits. It cannot be awarded after a marriage of less than 3 years, and it generally cannot last longer than 50 percent of a marriage under 10 years, 60 percent of a marriage of 10 to 20 years, or 75 percent of a marriage of 20 years or more, measured from the wedding to the filing date. The amount is capped at the lesser of the receiving spouse's reasonable need or 35 percent of the difference between the parties' net incomes. Advice based on the old law can be badly wrong today.
Questions about your own case?
Yvette B. Reyes, Esq. offers a free first consultation, in English or Spanish, for families in Palm Beach, Miami-Dade, Broward, Monroe, Orange, Hillsborough and Leon counties.
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This article is general information about Florida law, not legal advice about your situation, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Florida law changes, and every case turns on its own facts. Full disclaimer.
