Joint business owners

[backinthesaddle]

Just enquiring if anyone has experience with divorcing husband/wife being joint business owners. It is a trade. She did books and he is the one who works. They each draw the same salary as per CRA records. Separated over a year ago and financially everything has stayed the same. His income is deposited and they both have access. She no longer does the books. She still goes through each transaction line by line and questions his business dinners, etc.and recently he received a letter from her lawyer that they want to know what every transaction is for. Which job site etc. She books trips and personal expenses on the same company account. I would say this part is for CRA to deal with and not a lawyer. She is concerned about him spending money on his new gf. He is not allowed to see his kids and she has not allowed him back to his home so he rents a condo. He was hoping to make life easy for the kids but they insult him and tell him to F off most days. He had a good relationship with the kids before this. If a company solely relies on one person to work and without that person there is no company and the company is only worth what it makes annually and no value then how does this get calculated? Wife refuses to work although has training in another profession..nurse. Would retroactive spousal and cs be payable even though she had access to all the money she wanted from their business and he kept working and paying all the bills status quo? I know several couples in the same situation. Just wondering how value is determined?

[Janus]

Generally speaking, owning a business is a bit of a disaster when you get divorced. Two things happen:

1) The business gets appraised, and that value becomes part of the assets of the owner. In other words, the spouse gets half the value.

2) The income stream from the business is also used to calculate support.

So you get hit twice, once during equalization, and then again during support calculations.

She still goes through each transaction line by line and questions his business dinners

Most of us plebs have to pay for our dinners using our income. If the company is paying for your dinner, expect that to be counted as income.

She books trips and personal expenses on the same company account.

Presumably she is about to be fired from the company. This will trigger spousal support payments, but that might be cheaper than paying for trips.

He is not allowed to see his kids

If a judge made that order, then the father is likely a horribly abusive asshole who should not be seeing his kids.

If there is no order preventing the father from seeing his children, then he is abandoning them and is about to lose them unless he fixes this situation quickly.

and she has not allowed him back to his home

If a judge did not allow him back into his home, then he probably deserved it.

If there is no order preventing the father from living at home, then he got played.

He was hoping to make life easy for the kids

The father abandoned the children to go rent a condo and shag his girlfriend. How on earth does that make life easy for the kids?

but they insult him and tell him to F off most days.

Of course they do, parents who abandon their kids don't get treated nicely.

He had a good relationship with the kids before this.

Before he left them?

Have you ever dumped somebody? Did you notice that it affected your relationship with them?

If a company solely relies on one person to work and without that person there is no company and the company is only worth what it makes annually and no value then how does this get calculated?

You get a professional appraiser who decides if there is any value. Note that "goodwill" can have some value. It is very unlikely that the company is worth zero.

Wife refuses to work although has training in another profession..nurse.

Try to impute income. It may be tricky though, she just got fired from a long-term job.

Would retroactive spousal and cs be payable even though she had access to all the money she wanted from their business and he kept working and paying all the bills status quo?

Assuming that all bills were paid and that she took money out of the company for personal reasons, father might avoid retroactive support payments. Not a guarantee though, probably depends on how much father paid vs. how much mother would have received.