Disclosure about your spouse's assets: what you are entitled to

Which points in time can you demand disclosure about?

Accrued gains are a difference, and each side of that calculation needs figures. The right to disclosure under § 1379 BGB therefore reaches over three cut-off dates: the initial assets at the time of the marriage, the assets at the time of the separation and the final assets when the divorce application becomes pending (§ 1384 BGB).

The middle cut-off date is the decisive one: only the comparison with the moment of separation shows whether anything was moved in between.

Already during the separation: disclosure at separation

The most effective innovation of the 2009 reform is disclosure at separation. You can demand disclosure about the assets as at the time of the separation while the matrimonial property regime still exists and you live apart (§ 1379 (2) BGB), that is long before the actual equalization.

That makes it possible to record a position early, before accounts are emptied, shareholdings restructured or values “redesignated”. Anyone who documents that moment takes the ground out from under the later dispute.

Documents, not just assertions

Disclosure does not mean accepting a list and believing it. On request, supporting documents have to be produced; you can demand to be brought in when the inventory is drawn up, and you can require the valuation of individual items (§ 1379 BGB).

Ideally a joint inventory is drawn up (§ 1377 BGB) that is binding for both sides. Only checked figures carry a claim that holds up in court.

The bridge to § 1375: assets that have disappeared

Here the circle closes. Where the final assets are lower than the assets at the time of separation, the burden of explanation reverses: the other has to explain where the difference went (§ 1375 (2) BGB).

Where they do not manage that, the amount is added to their final assets, as if it had never flowed away. Gratuitous transfers, wasteful spending and acts intended specifically to disadvantage the other are counted in that way.

How is the right to disclosure enforced?

Where disclosure fails to arrive or appears incomplete, the claim is pursued as a staged action: first the disclosure, then, where there is well-founded doubt about its correctness and completeness, the affirmation in lieu of an oath, and lastly the quantified application for payment.

The advantage: you do not have to know the amount of the claim in order to assert your right. You obtain the figures first and quantify the claim only once they are established.

Once the figures are there

Disclosure is a means to an end. As soon as the figures are available, the actual work begins: sorting the initial and final assets, valuing the items, calculating the equalization claim. How that works in principle is set out on our page on assets & accrued gains.

For the individual items much hangs on the valuation. For a property the market value less encumbrances counts, not the land register; on that, the property in the equalization of accrued gains. Where a business sits in the assets, it is valued under rules of its own: business valuation in the equalization of accrued gains. And where assets lie abroad, the prior question is which matrimonial property law applies at all: foreign assets in the equalization of accrued gains.

Whether disclosure at separation, a demand for documents or a staged action is the right first step depends on what you already know and on what is meant to stay hidden. In a confidential first conversation we clarify which disclosure has to be secured first in your case.

Legal notice: This article is provided for general information and does not replace legal advice in an individual case. Any laws, deadlines and amounts mentioned reflect the state of affairs at the time of publication and may change. A binding assessment requires a personal consultation.