First of all, this is a common problem especially with successful people. With bright, hard-working successful people, their business is almost always worth more than their other assets. So your business in the divorce starts with the appraisal. Once you get a value for the business then you have to figure out a strategy where both parties can service after that, and most often, that requires an installment type buy out. It’s often very difficult to cash out the non employed and the non participating partner in the business and so you have to figure out a way that that person gets his or her money without ruining the business and that’s frequently an installment sale.

The other technique that is frequently used is you can beef up the alimony or spousal maintenance in order for the non-participating spouse to get his or her share of the business quicker. So installment payments, increased alimony is frequently the way to deal with dividing a very successful business that is worth more of the other marital assets in the marital estate.