Rule 26 disclosures in a Wyoming divorce.
Within a month of the answer, each spouse must hand the other a sworn picture of the whole balance sheet: every account, every asset, every debt, every source of income, and every retirement plan, with a position on whether each item is marital. Wyoming wrote a disclosure rule just for divorce. This page explains what it requires, what to gather, and what the court does when a spouse will not comply.
Call or text me. Clients get my cell number from day one, and I answer. Just been served? Here's what happens next.
Three things the rule settles.
Wyoming exempts divorce from the ordinary civil initial disclosures and substitutes a list of its own: eight schedules covering financial accounts, other assets, debts, safe deposit boxes, employment, other income, retirement accounts, and the facts behind any custody claim (W.R.C.P. 26(a)(1.1)). It is served on the other spouse, not filed with the court.
The disclosures are due within thirty days after the answer is due, unless the spouses agree in writing to a different date or the court sets one. Nobody has to ask for them. A spouse who is still "gathering" on day sixty is in breach of a rule, not behind on a favor, and the other side can move to compel.
For every account, asset, and debt the rule asks whether the spouse claims it as marital or non-marital. That question has no automatic answer in Wyoming, because the court divides all property as it finds "just and equitable" with origin as one factor (W.S. § 20-2-114). The schedule is where a separate-property claim is first made, and first tested.
What goes on the schedules.
The rule is specific in a way that surprises people who expected a form with a few boxes. For each financial account it wants the institution, the date opened, the type, the account number, and the current value. For every other asset, the purchase price, the date acquired, the present market value, the debt against it, how it is titled, and where it came from. For each debt, when it was incurred, in whose name, the balance, the monthly payment, and what secures it. Employment means the employer, the gross monthly wage, deductions, benefits, and any bonus still owed. Retirement accounts are listed with their present value and, where the account predates the wedding, its value on the day of the marriage.
That last detail is the one most people cannot produce from memory, and it is the one that decides the most money. A 401(k) with a hundred thousand dollars in it on the wedding day and four hundred thousand at filing is argued very differently from one that started at zero. The same goes for a house bought with a parent's down payment or a business started before the marriage. Each is before the court, and each carries an origin the court must weigh. A history written down carefully, with the statement that proves it, is worth more than any argument I can make at trial.
Where there are children, each parent also files a Confidential Financial Affidavit on the Supreme Court's form, supported by pay stubs and the most recent tax return, before any child support order can be entered (W.S. § 20-2-308). The affidavit and the schedules overlap on income, and the two had better match.
- 01Three years of federal tax returns with every schedule and K-1, plus the most recent W-2s and 1099s
- 02Twelve months of statements for every checking, savings, brokerage, and credit card account, in either name
- 03The most recent statement for every retirement account, and the statement closest to the wedding date for any account that existed then
- 04The deed, the mortgage statement, the last appraisal or purchase closing statement for every parcel, including a lot or cabin outside Wyoming
- 05Pay stubs for the last three months; for seasonal and self-employed work, the last full year of invoices, receipts, and the profit-and-loss
- 06Business documents: operating agreement, the last two years of company returns, the latest balance sheet
- 07Any prenuptial or postnuptial agreement, trust instrument, or gift letter that explains where an asset came from
The rule requires the schedules; the documents behind them are what the other side will request in discovery and what the court needs to believe them. Gathering both at once saves a month.
Where the Rule 26 disclosures lead.
- The scheduling conference. In Teton County the court sets a scheduling conference on its own motion once the answer is filed, run by the judicial assistant by phone. Counsel is expected to know when the Rule 26 disclosures were due and whether they are complete. A case where both sides arrive with finished schedules gets a shorter calendar; one where a spouse has not produced gets a discovery deadline and a judge who remembers.
- Discovery. The schedules are a starting point. What they leave open is pursued with interrogatories, document requests, depositions, and subpoenas to banks and employers. The duty to supplement continues through the case, so an account that appears in month six goes on an amended schedule in month six. See the hidden assets page for what to do when the schedule is not believed.
- Mediation. The court must send a case to mediation if either spouse asks, and the mediation that settles is the one where both spouses can see the same numbers. I have rarely seen a case settle before the disclosures are done, and rarely seen one fail to settle once they are.
- The decree. Property is divided once, and the division is final in a way custody and support are not. A decree built on complete schedules holds. One built on a spouse's silence can be reopened for fraud, and the silent spouse pays for the second case as well as the first.
Stonewalling, the Jackson balance sheet, and the court.
What the court does about a spouse who will not disclose, what a Jackson Hole balance sheet looks like, and how Teton County handles the paper
When the other side stonewalls
Some spouses do not produce, usually because the one who controls the money believes the other can be waited out. The rules are built for that case. A spouse who misses the deadline is served with formal discovery and, when that is ignored or answered with boilerplate objections, a motion to compel. The court can order production by a date certain, award the fees the motion cost, treat the facts the missing documents would have shown as established against the spouse who withheld them, bar that spouse from using evidence they did not produce, and, in the worst cases, enter a default on the issue. The divorce statute adds a tool of its own: the court may compel either spouse to attend and answer under oath about their property and about money owed to them by others, and may enforce its orders by attachment, commitment, or injunction (W.S. § 20-2-112(a)). A spouse who stonewalls is not avoiding the disclosure. They are choosing to make it in a courtroom, after a motion, with the judge watching.
What a Jackson Hole balance sheet looks like
The schedules were written for an ordinary Wyoming household, and Jackson households are not ordinary. Income is often seasonal: a resort or guiding job with a winter and a summer, a construction business that bills from May to October. The schedules ask for monthly figures; for seasonal work the honest answer is a full year with its months. For most of my clients the equity in the home is the largest asset, and it needs a current value, not the assessor's; deed-restricted and employee housing has a value the restriction sets. Family money appears often: a parent's down payment, a trust distribution, a cabin outside the state owned with siblings. Each goes on the schedule with its source, and each begins the argument the property division page and the high-net-worth page describe.
Marital, non-marital, and the honest answer
People read the marital-or-not column as a version of the separate-property regime other states use, and it is not. Wyoming's statute puts all property of the parties before the court and directs a division that "appears just and equitable," weighing the merits of the parties, the condition each will be left in, who brought the property in, and the burdens it carries (W.S. § 20-2-114). An asset marked non-marital is an asset with an argument attached, not an asset removed from the case. The designation is sworn, it is early, and it is the first thing the other side reads. A brokerage account called premarital when the statements show it was funded during the marriage costs credibility on every other line. A claim that is careful and documented is usually accepted at mediation without a fight.
In Teton County
Every divorce in the county is heard by one district judge, and the disclosures are the first thing her scheduling process asks about. The conference is set on the court's own motion once an answer is filed, conducted by her judicial assistant by phone, and counsel is expected to say when the Rule 26 disclosures were due and whether they have been made. Discovery disputes usually go to a special master, the scheduling order sets an expedited period for responding to discovery motions, and a spouse who answers every request with an objection in order to withhold information should expect sanctions. Cases are heard in the temporary courtrooms at 250 E. Simpson Ave.; the courthouse page has the details. The divorce page covers the case as a whole, the step-by-step page shows where the disclosures fall in the calendar, and the temporary orders page covers the support and restraints available while they are being assembled.
Questions people ask about Rule 26 disclosures.
Do I have to disclose accounts that are only in my name?
What is the Confidential Financial Affidavit, and is it the same thing as the Rule 26 disclosures?
My spouse handled all the money. How am I supposed to fill this out?
What happens if my spouse refuses to disclose, or sends a page of objections?
How far back do the documents go?
Can we skip the Rule 26 disclosures if we have already agreed on everything?
Start with a confidential conversation with Aaron Herzberg.
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