part IV

While the hostility and insults upset my father, they didn’t hurt half as much as what occurred next. Only one month after he drove his beautiful new Lincoln home from the show room, it was stolen -- never to be seen again. While my father mourned the theft of his prized automobile, it wasn’t long before he realized that the theft of the Lincoln was really a blessing in disguise. Once he was back behind the wheel of his trusty old station wagon, life returned to normal. No more loan requests; no more envious stares and no more marriage proposals for me.

In only one short month, my Dad learned a lesson that some Americans never grasp -- that even small displays of wealth make people targets. At the very least, a display of one’s wealth invites envy, and more often than not, an open display of assets invites theft.

While you clearly want to take steps to hide your assets from potential thieves, pretexters and greedy government agencies, it’s possible that the greatest threat to your financial security is sleeping in the bed right next to you. Let’s assume you’re married, and over the last few years, things haven’t been going so well between you and your husband. So you decide to divorce him. Although you’re worried about being alone, you’re not particularly worried about your financial future because years ago, you had the foresight to open a bank account in only your name.

The next day, you skip off to your lawyer’s office to get the divorce ball rolling, and that’s when you learn the awful truth -- half of everything you own, including your separate bank account, belongs to him. As your lawyer explains to you, it doesn’t matter that the money in the account came out of your paycheck. You throw up your hands and yell hysterically, “why, oh why, didn’t I think to hide that money?”

Don’t be too hard on yourself. You didn’t know that there were ways to hide your assets just in case you eventually decided to kick the jerk out.

For those of you who are just now considering marriage (or are already married and are interested in protecting your finances), read, learn and implement. With a little careful planning, you might be able to avoid having to turn over half of everything to your ex-special someone. That’s why I’ve included some suggestions as to how you might maintain a separate bank account that your spouse knows nothing about. I’ve also included some other places, besides banks, where you might want to hide assets to protect them from an angry ex-spouse bent on destroying you.

Even if you’re a single woman who has managed to avoid the legal entanglements associated with marriage, learning how to hide your assets can still be advantageous if you plan on having any romantic life at all. As most single women know, you don’t have to be married to have a man try to get his hands on your money. Single women are often targeted by predatory men who make a habit of living off of, or stealing from, successful women. These men don’t need a marriage license to use the courts to go after a woman’s assets. That’s why I’ve included advice for single women on how to protect their finances from these unsavory operators.

As I later discuss in more detail, women (and men) who are dating need to think twice about providing potential suitors with highly personal information such as their home address, phone number, Email address or in some cases, work address. Providing a potential suitor (who is often a complete stranger) with intimate personal information can put not only one’s wealth at risk, but also one’s security. A single woman who is about to get involved with a stranger needs to consider where in their home, office, yard or other locale, she should hide things ranging from her jewelry to her bank account numbers. With a little thought (and my chapter on financial privacy and the single woman), she’ll learn that there are specific steps she can take to protect her wealth. As I always insist, the key to ensuring financial privacy is to be proactive, not reactive.

Now, if you’re neither married nor bent on getting involved with a beautiful, litigious blond, don’t assume that you’re safe from a lawsuit. Marriage, cohabitation or a brief fling aren’t the only “encounters” that can lead to litigation. Anyone can become the target of a nasty lawsuit. And once that happens, you’d better hope that you not only read this book, but that you memorized it -- chapter and verse.

Once a lawsuit has been filed against you, a process known as discovery begins. Discovery generally allows the person (or company) that is suing you to request all documentation related to the allegations in his lawsuit. What that means in plain English is that if some guy is suing you for breaching a contract with him, he can ask to see every document in your possession related to any and all transactions that you ever undertook with him. And, since he’s asking for you to pay significant damages, he can ask to see all of your companies’ books and any and all financial documents relating to the running of your business. (This is only a small sample of what types of things can be requested during a lawsuit. Just keep in mind that discovery requests often run as long as twenty to thirty pages and they tend to ask for all of your private financial information, including your tax returns.)

If you have any interest in protecting your assets from frivolous (or even meritorious) lawsuits, you’d better be proactive about hiding your assets. As we all know, even if a lawsuit is ultimately unsuccessful, the cost of defending one can completely bankrupt a once thriving company. And, as I just mentioned, the mere filing of a lawsuit can force you and/or your company to reveal so much sensitive financial information that it becomes virtually impossible to continue to operate your business. Fortunately, this book can help your prepare for the worst, even as you continue to hope for the best.