Guide
Free Divorce Asset Discovery Template: The 6 Categories Forensic Accountants Check First
July 12, 2026
Free Divorce Asset Discovery Template: The 6 Categories Forensic Accountants Check First
Before you negotiate a single dollar, you need to know what’s actually in the marriage. Roughly 40% of spouses engage in some form of financial deception during divorce — and most of it happens by quietly moving things into the six categories forensic accountants check first. This template walks you through those six categories so you can document what exists before it disappears, change, or get explained away.
You don’t need a law degree to do this. You need a phone, a notebook, and a couple of quiet hours.
Why a “category-based” template matters more than a generic asset list
A spreadsheet of “stuff we own” is not asset discovery. It’s a moving receipt.
Forensic accountants — and the attorneys who hire them — don’t work from lists. They work from categories, because that’s how money and property get hidden: a vehicle titled to a relative, a rental property held in an LLC, a 401(k) loan that “accidentally” drained a retirement account. When you organize your own records by the same six categories a forensic would, you (a) catch things you’d otherwise forget, (b) speak the same language as your attorney, and © make it much harder for anything to quietly leave the marital estate.
Walk through these six categories in order. Don’t try to be exhaustive on the first pass — just get everything out of your head and onto paper.
Category 1: Cash, bank, and financial accounts
This is the most-checked category for a reason: cash is the easiest thing in the world to move and the hardest to prove went missing.
Document for each account:
- Bank name, account type (checking, savings, money market, HSA, brokerage, crypto exchange)
- Last four digits of the account number
- Whose name is on it (yours / spouse’s / joint / a relative’s)
- Approximate balance at three dates: today, one year ago, and the date of separation
- Whether direct deposits or automatic withdrawals hit it
Red flags forensic accountants look for here:
- A new account that opened in the 6–12 months before separation
- Large transfers to a family member or close friend
- Increased cash withdrawals or ATM pulls
- A “loan” from a retirement account that lands in a personal checking
- A balance that mysteriously drops right around the time you started talking about divorce
Tip: Under federal law, you’re entitled to account history. Most banks let you download 12–24 months of statements online. Pull them now, while you still have login access — that access often gets cut fast.
Category 2: Real estate and land
Houses are easy. The hiding spots are the other properties — and the equity you’ve already built.
Document for each property:
- Address, ownership name (both names? just one? an LLC? a trust?)
- Purchase date and original price
- Current estimated value (Zillow / Redfin / county assessor)
- Outstanding mortgage balance and HELOC balance
- Rental income, if any
- Who paid for major repairs or improvements in the last three years
Red flags forensic accountants look for here:
- A property titled to a parent, sibling, or business partner “for convenience”
- A quit-claim deed signed in the last year
- A vacation home, cabin, orland parcel you forgot about
- A rental that “doesn’t net anything” but somehow pays for its own mortgage
- A refi cash-out that funded something unaccounted-for
Category 3: Vehicles, boats, and titled assets
Cars and boats are titled, which means there’s a paper trail — but only if you know they exist.
Document for each titled item:
- Year, make, model, VIN or HIN
- Title holder and any lien holder
- Current value (KBB / NADA / BoatTrader)
- When it was purchased and what it cost
- Whose name is on the insurance
Red flags forensic accountants look for here:
- A vehicle that’s been “sold to a friend” but is still in the driveway
- A boat, ATV, motorcycle, or RV that’s titled to someone else
- A car loan that’s been paid down rapidly in the last year (someone’s pulling equity out)
- Recreational toys — jet skis, side-by-sides, snowmobiles — that “aren’t worth much”
Category 4: Retirement, pensions, and stock-based compensation
This is where the biggest dollar amounts hide, because retirement balances are abstract and easy to underestimate.
Document for each account:
- Type (401(k), 403(b), traditional IRA, Roth IRA, SEP, SIMPLE, pension, ESPP)
- Institution and approximate balance
- Beneficiary listed
- For pensions: a benefits estimate letter from HR
- For stock options / RSUs: the most recent grant letter and vesting schedule
Red flags forensic accountants look for here:
- A 401(k) loan that was taken out recently (it shows up as “balance” but it’s really cash in pocket)
- A rollover from a retirement account into a brokerage “to be managed” — often the first step in draining it
- A spouse who suddenly starts “maxing out contributions” right before separation (depressing marital share)
- Unvested stock that disappears from the calculation but still has real value
- A pension that one spouse “doesn’t have” because they’re vested in a previous employer’s plan they’ve forgotten to mention
Category 5: Business interests and self-employment income
If either of you owns a business — even a small one, even a side hustle — this category deserves its own afternoon.
Document for each interest:
- Legal entity name and structure (sole prop, LLC, S-corp, partnership, corporation)
- State of formation and EIN
- Ownership percentage for each spouse
- Bank accounts used by the business
- Most recent tax return (Form 1120, 1120-S, 1065, or Schedule C)
- A list of major assets owned by the business
- Any buy-sell agreements
Red flags forensic accountants look for here:
- Revenue that gets deposited into a personal account instead of the business account
- “Owner’s draws” that spike in the months before separation
- A business that pays for personal expenses — cars, vacations, country clubs
- A sudden new “business partner” with an unexplained stake
- Inventory, equipment, or customer lists that aren’t on the books
- Cash businesses that “had a bad year” — which can’t be verified
Forensic accountants call this category “the playground” because the opportunities to manipulate numbers are nearly endless.
Category 6: Personal property, valuables, and collectibles
This is the category most people underestimate and most attorneys under-prepare for. It’s also the category where the inventory tool I’m building was originally designed to help.
Walk the home with your phone and photograph:
- Furniture (room by room is fine)
- Electronics — TVs, computers, tablets, sound systems, cameras
- Jewelry and watches
- Art, antiques, and rugs
- Firearms (note make/model/serial)
- Tools and sporting equipment with real resale value
- Designer goods — handbags, shoes, watches, sunglasses
- Collections — coins, stamps, wine, cards, memorabilia
For each, note:
- Approximate age and original purchase price (when you can recall)
- Whether it was a gift, inherited, or purchased jointly
- Anything with a serial number, certificate of authenticity, or appraisal
Red flags forensic accountants look for here:
- A “garage cleanout” that happens right after separation
- Items “loaned” to friends or family indefinitely
- A safety deposit box you didn’t know about
- Art, jewelry, or watches reappraised just before separation (often to claim lower value)
- Tools, guns, or equipment with resale value that “were already sold”
The template: a one-page checklist you can use today
Copy this into a note on your phone and start filling it in tonight:
[ ] 1. BANK & FINANCIAL ACCOUNTS
- [ ] Joint checking: ____________ balance: $____
- [ ] Spouse's personal checking: ____________
- [ ] Your personal checking: ____________
- [ ] Savings accounts (list all): ____________
- [ ] Brokerage / investment: ____________
- [ ] Crypto exchange: ____________
- [ ] HSA / FSA: ____________
- [ ] Cash on hand estimate: $____
[ ] 2. REAL ESTATE
- [ ] Primary residence: ____________ est. value $____
- [ ] Vacation / second home: ____________
- [ ] Rental property: ____________
- [ ] Land / unimproved: ____________
- [ ] Timeshares: ____________
[ ] 3. VEHICLES & TITLED
- [ ] Car 1: ____________ VIN _____ est. $____
- [ ] Car 2: ____________ VIN _____ est. $____
- [ ] Boat / jet ski: ____________
- [ ] Motorcycle / ATV: ____________
- [ ] RV / trailer: ____________
[ ] 4. RETIREMENT & STOCK COMP
- [ ] 401(k) / 403(b) spouse: ____________
- [ ] 401(k) / 403(b) you: ____________
- [ ] IRAs (list all): ____________
- [ ] Pension: ____________
- [ ] Stock options / RSUs: ____________
- [ ] ESPP: ____________
[ ] 5. BUSINESS INTERESTS
- [ ] Business 1: ____________ entity: _____
- [ ] Business 2: ____________ entity: _____
- [ ] Side income accounts: ____________
- [ ] Last tax return pulled? Y / N
[ ] 6. PERSONAL PROPERTY
- [ ] Photos of every room taken? Y / N
- [ ] Jewelry / watches inventoried? Y / N
- [ ] Art / antiques listed? Y / N
- [ ] Firearms listed (make / model / serial)? Y / N
- [ ] Designer goods photographed? Y / N
- [ ] Tools / sporting equipment listed? Y / N
- [ ] Safety deposit box known? Y / N
Don’t aim for perfect. Aim for complete enough that nothing disappears without a trace.
What to do with this once you’ve filled it in
Two things, in this order:
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Make two copies. One stays somewhere safe that only you can access — a trusted friend’s house, a locked safe deposit box, a secure cloud folder with a password your spouse doesn’t know. The other becomes the working version you bring to your attorney.
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Start a dated log. Any new financial activity you notice from this point forward — a property that comes up on a title search, an account you suddenly can’t access, a credit card statement that stops arriving — write it down with the date. Patterns matter more than any single item.
This template isn’t a legal document and it isn’t a valuation. It’s a documentation starting point — the same six-category view a forensic would build in week one of an engagement, but built by you, in an afternoon, before the picture changes.
If you want to skip the spiral notebook and build the personal-property section room by room with photos, tags (Mine / Yours / Shared / Disputed), and a printable report you can hand straight to counsel, halfyourstuff.com walks you through it. The rest of the categories live in your bank portals and tax returns — this is just the part that’s been sitting in your living room.