Questions people ask
What is a financial affidavit in a divorce?
The short answer
A financial affidavit is a sworn statement of each spouse's income, expenses, assets and liabilities, filed in a Florida divorce on a form the court publishes. Accurate figures depend on having the statements, titles and records behind them.
The longer answer
Because it is sworn, the affidavit is only as good as the paper underneath it. Each line should trace to something: a statement, a pay record, a title, an appraisal, a loan balance. A number with nothing behind it is a number you may have to defend from memory. Round numbers are a sign that nobody looked.
Which version of the form applies to your case is for your attorney to say, along with how to complete it. We won't, and we shouldn't. Read the whole form once before your first meeting with counsel, so the questions you bring are specific.
The monthly figures are the easy part. Income and expenses repeat, and last month's statement is usually enough to fill them in. Where income is irregular, a year of statements tells a truer story than one good month. Bills that arrive once a year, such as insurance premiums, are where guesses creep in; divide the annual figure rather than estimating the month.
The harder lines are the values. What the house is worth, what the car is worth, what the ring appraised at, and what a retirement account held on a given date all rest on documents that are slow to replace. Someone may ask to see them, and the request may come after the affidavit is filed rather than before. Note the valuation date beside each one, because a figure only means something as of a date.
Monthly statements at hand, valuations in the box
Split the paper by how often you will touch it. Pay stubs and recent statements get pulled repeatedly while a case runs, so keep those in a folder at home or in a shared folder with your attorney's office. A box reached by appointment is the wrong place for anything you need on a Tuesday night. We would rather say that than rent you space for paper that belongs on your kitchen table.
The originals behind the large numbers are a different category: the deeds and titles that show who owns what, closing statements, older appraisals, and the appraisal papers that travel with jewelry. They are read once or twice, questioned now and then, and very hard to reconstruct once lost. An appraisal from 2011 cannot be ordered again. A new one only tells you what the item is worth today.
If a figure on the affidavit is challenged, the first question is where it came from. A known answer, with the paper in a known place, settles that question quickly. An answer that begins with a search through the garage does not, and the other side will notice the difference.