John Sheehan

Financial

Biography: I qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1981 and I act for a wide range of clients in a variety of businesses. Having seen a few clients suffer emotionally and financially in contested divorce cases, when I first became aware of collaborative family law, I thought that it was a much kinder approach to divorce. I undertook collaborative training in 2009.

Why is the collaborative approach better? From a financial standpoint, often, where one spouse has business interests and the other is not involved in the business, there is a lack of knowledge and understanding about the business that can lead to misconceptions about the capital value of, and the income that can be generated from, a business. The collaborative approach allows such matters to be more easily dealt with where both parties can ask questions of an independent third party about how complex business structures work and how valuations have been computed. This helps to resolve any distrust and means that both parties hear the same story at the same time.

Additionally tax issues can be flushed out and a good knowledge of tax liabilities that could arise helps to decide the best assets to be disposed of if that is necessary. Working together, both spouses can ensure that the taxman is not the major beneficiary of their divorce!