With the pain of separation and divorce, comes the harsh reality of sitting across the table and settling asset distribution too. Divorce cases could be resolved with the mutual consent or contested in court – in both the cases; there is a need for clarity about the ownership of assets. It is only with this clarity that division of all assets can be done in a fair manner.
Some specialized legal experts handle the intricacies of divorce. We step in when it comes to evaluation of property and assessment for the purpose of settlement in such cases. Take the story of Ritika Saluja, who approached us after she viewed the history and service details of the company on the internet. She had been living in Sydney, Australia for the past twenty years after her marriage to Sachin Saluja. In addition to struggling with her divorce and other issues of separation, she also found herself in a fix over the property that her husband had in India. As expected, he was not very forthcoming in providing details of the same. She had no clue whatsoever about the value of these properties – neither Indian nor Foreign. Once she contacted our office, an extensive online interaction was done with her to obtain the exact details of her case. Subsequently, follow-up through emails and talks helped her stay in tune with all the efforts being done to pursue her particular case. To save her from the financial crunch that she feared and to help her get her rightful share, the company legal experts diligently resolved the issues without her having to travel to India even once for any query or filing.
For NRIs, it is a humungous task getting an asset evaluated in India – and preparing a report for legal purposes is a greater challenge. They cannot even travel frequently to India to take care of their property matters. While the divorce issues could be taken care of lawyers who specialize in separation cases, expert advice is needed for the asset division settlements. However, frequently during a divorce, the two parties might not be aware of the property of the other. This leads to a loss of direction. In India, the notion of marital property rights has not received as much attention as in some other countries. In the largely patriarchal society that India has, it is accepted that a woman ‘belongs’ to her husband’s family after her marriage. Her right to property has not been recognized in society. In fact, the Indian community still reflects a relatively insecure financial status for women. Usually, they do not have clarity about the level and nature of investments done by their husbands. Hence, over the years, divorce laws have been framed to favour women so that they are protected financially. We could define Property in various ways – share in business, dowry that the woman brought with her, gifts that she received whether in her marriage or later on from friends and relatives and various other assets collected by the couple.
In a divorce case either the man or woman will approach the court to settle matters of division and settlement of property. This division is required either for themselves or, for their children. The only property considered here is of course just the ‘marital property.’ Also, it is vital to reflect income disparity during the division of assets. We could very well ask ourselves – who would want to talk about assets and their details when love & marriage are the only things in mind? But in reality, it does help being aware of each other’s assets during the marriage. It is also important to be alert and aware of the joint/individual assets bought during the marriage. Let not divorce become a mentally and financially more expensive option – stay alert, stay secure!