Can I protect marital assets from my spouse by “temporarily gifting” assets to somebody else until after the divorce is final?
Can you? Like is it doable? Sure, you can do it. And many divorcing people do this very thing successfully (meaning they get away with it).
But is it legal? No.
Translated, your question really means: “Can I hide or hog marital assets from my spouse by falsely claiming to have “gifted” the assets to someone without ever intending to give the assets away but in fact intending to get them back after falsely claiming to have gifted them away?”
As you might imagine, this has been tried before. Courts and legislatures have noticed this kind of thing is tried all the time, which is why it’s illegal.
There’s even a term for it: fraudulent transfer. A fraudulent transfer in divorce occurs when one spouse someone knowingly transfers ownership of marital property in an attempt to deprive the other spouse of his/her portion of the ownership or value of the marital property.
Utah Family Law, LC | divorceutah.com | 801-466-9277