It sounded such a wonderful plan. After your honeymoon traveling around the world, you decided to start a small organic coffee shop together, like the ones you had seen in Australia.
For the first year, it was tough but fun. Then, when the business started to struggle, you began to fight. You told your husband you want a divorce.
Now you need to divide your property. Fortunately, you did not have the time or money to buy a house, car or any of those big purchases that so many divorcing couples fight over. However, there is the small matter of the cafe in which you both invested your savings.
First, you need to get it valued by an impartial third party. While you may have invested a lot of love and hard work into a business, sometimes it is better to be non-emotional about these things and look at them from a business point of view only.
Dividing a business you share with your spouse has a few solutions
- One of you could keep it: If you decide you could make the business work, and want to keep it, you will need to buy your partner out. If you had other assets, you could bargain some of those versus the value of the cafe. If not, you will need to come to some financial arrangement.
- You could continue to work together: Some couples can pull this off, although most cannot.
- You could sell it: If neither of you wants to carry on, sell the business, pay off any debts it has and split what remains.
Seek legal help to understand more about property division in divorce.