Guide · DivorceDissipation of marital assets in Florida: what counts and how it is proven.
When one spouse drains marital money before or during a divorce, Florida law lets the court account for it. Here is the statutory test, how appellate courts apply it, and the records that prove it.
By Geoffrey B. Davis Jr.Updated November 11, 20269 min read
In brief
Dissipation claims are common and frequently lost. Florida’s appellate courts consistently reverse trial judges who charge a spouse with money that is gone without evidence of intentional misconduct and a specific finding to that effect. A claim that succeeds is built on records: which account, which dates, which payee, and why the spending served one spouse alone.
Key points
- 01
Two-year look-back
The statute reaches intentional dissipation after filing and within two years before the petition.
- 02
Misconduct is required
The spending must be for one spouse’s own benefit, unrelated to the marriage, during its breakdown.
- 03
The remedy is an add-back
Proven dissipated value can be assigned to the spending spouse in the property division.
- 04
The claimant carries the burden
The party seeking an unequal division must prove the justification for it.
What is dissipation of marital assets?
Florida divides marital property by equitable distribution. The court must start from the premise that the split should be equal, and may depart from equal only for reasons tied to the factors in section 61.075(1).1 One of those factors is dissipation.
Three parts of that sentence do most of the work. The conduct must be intentional. It must involve marital assets, not property one spouse owned before the marriage or inherited. And it must fall in a defined window: from two years before the petition through the end of the case. The statute also lets the court weigh “any other factors necessary to do equity and justice between the parties,” which can reach conduct outside the window.1
Dissipation overlaps with, but is not the same as, hiding assets. A hidden asset still exists and can be found and divided; a dissipated asset is gone, and the question is who bears the loss. Our whitepaper on hidden assets in a Florida divorce covers concealment.
How do Florida courts treat it?
The general rule is protective of the spouse who spent the money. Florida appellate courts hold that it is error to include in equitable distribution assets that were diminished or dissipated during the dissolution proceedings. The exception is misconduct: when it causes the loss, the court may assign the dissipated asset to the spending spouse when calculating the distribution.2 In practice this is an add-back. The court treats the lost value as if it were still in the estate and counts it toward the spending spouse’s share.
The misconduct test
In Roth v. Roth, the Second District stated the question as whether one spouse used “marital funds for his or her own benefit and for a purpose unrelated to the marriage at a time when the marriage is undergoing an irreconcilable breakdown,” quoting earlier Fourth District decisions. Mismanagement or “simple squandering” of which the other spouse disapproves does not qualify. There must be evidence of intentional dissipation and a specific finding of intentional misconduct.2
Can support a dissipation finding
- Marital money spent for one spouse’s own benefit
- A purpose unrelated to the marriage
- Timing during the breakdown of the marriage
- Evidence of intent, and a specific finding of intentional misconduct
Not dissipation on these records
- Paying court-ordered temporary support and family expenses (Roth)
- A $100,000 retirement withdrawal the court found was used for household and child expenses (Scheen, 2026)
- Mismanagement or spending the other spouse disapproves of
- A finding based only on the absence of an accounting
Roth shows how the test is applied. The trial court charged the husband with a $100,000 certificate of deposit, $220,000 in a bank account and a brokerage account because he had given “no explanation whatsoever” for them. The Second District reversed. His uncontradicted testimony was that the money paid support and living expenses during a five-year case, and a court may disbelieve testimony but cannot find intentional dissipation without some evidence of it.2 In June 2026 the Fourth District reversed on the same principle, where the trial court found credible a husband’s testimony that a $100,000 retirement withdrawal paid household and child expenses but refused to credit it.3
Burden of proof
The spouse alleging dissipation has to prove it. In Lapomarede v. Pierre, the Fourth District held that the party seeking an unequal allocation of assets and liabilities bears the burden of proving the justification, and reversed where no evidence of intentional dissipation was offered.4
A dissipation claim is won with a schedule of transactions and a tracing of where the money went, not with the fact that it is gone.
What counts as dissipation?
No list in the statute settles it; each claim turns on the misconduct test and the evidence. Exhibit 2 sets out the patterns that most often meet the test and the records that usually prove them.
| Example | Why it can qualify | How it is evidenced |
|---|---|---|
| Gambling losses | Marital funds lost on one spouse’s own pursuit | Card and bank charges at casinos and betting sites; online account histories; ATM use at casinos; the gambling line on the long-form affidavit |
| Spending on an affair | Travel, gifts, rent or support for a third party serve no marital purpose | Card statements for hotels, flights, restaurants and jewelers; transfers or checks to the third party; a second residence |
| Gifts to relatives or friends | Marital value moved out of the estate for one spouse’s purposes | Canceled checks and wire detail; changes in title; gift tax returns |
| Transfers to a child’s custodial account | A transfer under Florida’s Uniform Transfers to Minors Act is irrevocable | Custodial account statements and opening documents |
| Unexplained cash withdrawals | Cash that leaves with no matching marital expense | Withdrawal and ATM patterns; bank reports on currency transactions over $10,000; absence of matching expenses |
| Business diversion | Receipts or assets shifted to a new entity, a relative, or a partner | Business bank statements and general ledger; payroll to relatives; corporate filings for new entities |
| Destroying or abandoning property | Value deliberately lost, such as letting an asset lapse or be repossessed | Notices, insurance and loan records; timing against the filing date |
Whether any particular spending qualifies is for the court, on the evidence. The same transaction can be dissipation in one case and a marital expense in another.
Source: Roth v. Roth2; Form 12.902(c)5; Fla. Stat. §710.1136; 31 C.F.R. §1010.3117
The financial affidavit is often the first piece of evidence. The long form has a line for gambling and lottery expenses, and lines for gifts, vacations and the expenses of any additional household.5 Because it is signed under penalty of perjury, a sworn figure that later proves too low is evidence in its own right; see our guide to the Florida financial affidavit.
Business interests raise their own problems, because value can be moved without any money leaving a personal account. When a business is involved, the dissipation question often runs alongside a valuation question; see business valuation in divorce and our case study on the dispute over Château Miraval.
How is dissipation proven?
Proof is a tracing exercise. The goal is a schedule the judge can follow from each account to each payee, with dates, amounts and the reason each item served one spouse rather than the marriage. Mandatory disclosure supplies much of the raw material: 12 months of statements for every bank and brokerage account, including closed accounts, with canceled checks and registers so that the payee and purpose of each item can be identified, plus 24 months of credit card statements.8 Records beyond that, or held by banks, exchanges and businesses, can be obtained by subpoena from nonparties.9
- 01
Fix the window
Mark the filing date and the date two years before it, and identify when the marriage began to break down.
- 02
Collect every statement
Gather bank, card, brokerage, retirement and exchange records for the window, then subpoena what disclosure did not produce.
- 03
Trace and classify
Follow each significant outflow to its destination and classify it: marital expense, support, debt payment, or one spouse’s own purpose.
- 04
Quantify and test
Total the items that fail the marital-purpose test, and compare overall spending with income and the sworn affidavit.
- 05
Present for a finding
Put the schedules and source documents in evidence and ask the court for the specific finding of intentional misconduct.
The classification step decides most cases. Roth and Scheen were lost because the spending, on the evidence, went to marital purposes.23 A careful tracing anticipates that defense by identifying which household bills, support payments and debts were paid, and from which accounts, before arguing that the remainder was dissipated.
When individual transactions are hard to follow, an expenditures analysis helps. The IRS uses it where spending on consumable goods and services is high relative to reported income; the method totals money spent or applied and subtracts known sources of funds.10 In a divorce it shows how much money left the household and how much of it the marital expenses explain. What a forensic accountant does explains how examiners prepare this work for court.
What to do if you suspect it.
Move early. Records are easier to obtain and money is easier to follow while the trail is fresh.
- Talk to a Florida family-law attorney about the claim, the timing and what protective steps are available in your circuit.
- Preserve what you can lawfully access: joint account statements, card statements, tax returns and mail you receive. Do not take or open the other spouse’s private accounts without legal advice.
- Write down dates: when spending changed, when the marriage broke down, and when the petition was or will be filed. The statute’s window runs from those dates.1
- Check the other side’s disclosure against the rule, and follow up in writing on missing statements and closed accounts.8
- Bring in an examiner when the volume of transactions is beyond what you or your attorney can schedule. The court can order one party to pay the other’s reasonable fees, suit money and costs after considering both parties’ financial resources.11
Fraud Examination Service traces funds and prepares dissipation schedules as part of its divorce asset and income analysis, as a consulting or testifying examiner. To discuss a matter, see our divorce financial investigation services.
Common questions.
Short answers. The numbered notes link to the sources.
It is one spouse’s intentional waste, depletion or destruction of marital property. Florida courts describe it as using marital funds for one spouse’s own benefit and for a purpose unrelated to the marriage at a time when the marriage is undergoing an irreconcilable breakdown. Florida’s equitable distribution statute lists it as a factor the court may weigh in dividing property.
The statute covers intentional dissipation after the petition for dissolution is filed and within two years before it was filed. Spending outside that window can still matter under the statute’s catch-all factor for anything needed to do equity, but the two-year window is the period the legislature named.
If the court finds intentional misconduct based on evidence, it can treat the dissipated amount as if it still existed and assign it to the spending spouse’s share, or order an unequal distribution. Without evidence and a specific finding of intentional misconduct, Florida appellate courts reverse awards that charge a spouse with money that is gone.
Not by itself. Florida courts have repeatedly held that using marital funds to pay support, household bills, a child’s expenses or marital debts during the case is not dissipation. Mismanagement or spending the other spouse simply disapproves of is not enough either. The question is whether the money served one spouse’s own purposes unrelated to the marriage.
The spouse who claims it. Florida’s Fourth District has said the party seeking an unequal allocation must prove the justification for it. In practice that means bank and card statements, a tracing of where the money went, and evidence of timing, presented so the judge can make the specific finding the appellate courts require.
It can be. Gambling losses funded with marital money during the breakdown of the marriage are a classic example of spending for one spouse’s own benefit unrelated to the marriage. The losses still have to be proven, usually from bank and card statements, casino or online betting account records, and the gambling line on the sworn financial affidavit.
Sources
Sources and method.
Statute and rule text was read in its current official form on November 11, 2026. Case holdings are taken from the opinions themselves, including a June 2026 Fourth District decision; check for later decisions before relying on them.
- 1The Florida Senate · 2025 (current text)Florida Statutes §61.075, equitable distribution of marital assets and liabilities
- 2Florida Second District Court of Appeal (via CourtListener) · January 9, 2008Roth v. Roth, 973 So. 2d 580 (Fla. 2d DCA 2008)
- 3Florida Fourth District Court of Appeal · June 3, 2026Scheen v. Drozdovitch, No. 4D2025-1352
- 4Florida Fourth District Court of Appeal · November 27, 2024Lapomarede v. Pierre, No. 4D2024-0037
- 5Florida Courts · Revised June 2025Form 12.902(c), Family Law Financial Affidavit (Long Form), with instructions
- 6The Florida Senate · 2025 (current text)Florida Statutes §710.113, Florida Uniform Transfers to Minors Act, validity and effect of transfer
- 7Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School · Current text31 C.F.R. §1010.311, filing obligations for reports of transactions in currency
- 8The Florida Bar · October 1, 2026 editionFlorida Family Law Rules of Procedure, rule 12.285, mandatory disclosure
- 9The Florida Bar · October 1, 2026 editionFlorida Family Law Rules of Procedure, rule 12.351, production of documents and things without deposition
- 10Internal Revenue Service · Current textInternal Revenue Manual 9.5.9, Methods of Proof
- 11The Florida Senate · 2025 (current text)Florida Statutes §61.16, attorney’s fees, suit money, and costs
Talk to an examiner
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This guide is general information, not legal or tax advice. Talk to your attorney about your own matter.