Anyone who wants to file for divorce in the state of Rhode Island must complete a financial form known as “Assets and Liabilities Statements,” also known as Form DR-6.
I wrote about this form quite some time ago to help people understand it, because it was unclear what the form was intended for, what it was actually used for, and to try to remove to at least a small degree some of the mystery surrounding the confusing Rhode Island DR-6 form.
In October 2011, the Rhode Island Assets and Liabilities Statement DR-6 form was completely revised and a new DR-6 form is now required. The previous DR-6 form consisted of the front and back of a single page. The new and improved DR-6 form is now nine (9) pages long and has been created in the form of an Excel spreadsheet that is available for download from the Rhode Island Family Court website.
The new DR-6 is substantially longer and requests more specific information on virtually all forms of assets, debts, income, expenses, and investments.
Whether the new Rhode Island Assets and Liabilities Statement is really an improvement is still a subject of debate. However, at a minimum, the form requires a substantial amount of disclosure by all plaintiffs and, to the extent the court enforces filing of the DR-6, subsequent disclosure to the same extent by the defendant.
As with your old form, there are no specific instructions for completing the new Rhode Island Family Court DR-6 form. Although the verbose nature of the form might suggest that it is no longer confusing. However, you may change your mind once you try to complete one on your own.
The confusion lies in the fact that it is entirely possible that an item of income could easily fit into a subcategory of assets as well. The same concept applies to a debt item that could also fit into a liability category or subcategory. Common sense would seem to indicate that including the same item in both the debt and liability sections would create double entry and that the creators of the form would have no reason to create a form that duplicates information.
The conclusion to be drawn from this is that the creators of the form only intended for it to include any item that could fall into both areas into one of the areas.
So what’s the confusion, right? In which area should it be included? Should you include the element in the first section that seems appropriate and leave it out of the second section that is appropriate? Or should you do it in the reverse order and wait until it arrives to see if it comes to a second section that you can apply and place it there?
One would think that there would be an appropriate address for this question. I tried to use common sense and my analytical mind to determine the best category and/or section to select when dealing with multiple items of debt. I found that even if I wanted to discern the best category and/or section to include an item, I found that numerous items applied equally well to two categories and/or sections on the DR-6 form. I discovered, in the course of analyzing the form with actual information, that there were even three semi-common elements in many divorce financial structures that could fit equally well in three (3) sections of the DR-6 form.
So I asked a member of the committee that created the form about this problem. They told me to put it in one of the places. So I asked further if instructions were going to be created for the new Rhode Island DR-6 Asset and Liability Disclosure Form. Unfortunately, no instructions are anticipated for the form to help attorneys or the general public.
Unfortunately, this article may raise more questions than it actually answers. However, if anything, it will reassure you that you are not the only one concerned about this form and the confusion it creates for attorneys and the general public.
If you take a close look at the form, there is one thing I would appreciate being able to clarify for you. If the intent of the form is to provide reliable estimates to the parties and the Rhode Island Family Court, then you cannot simply put an item in a category or section of the form and leave it at that. The fact is that the form performs numerous calculations when used in its original Excel format.
If an item is not included in the category or section that the creators of the form “intended” in this new DR-6 form, the resulting calculations made by the DR-6 spreadsheet will be incorrect. One number may be overly inflated while another may be understated.
It would only take two or three items placed in an “unintentional” category or section to substantially rule out the resulting calculations in the spreadsheet. Depending on how the parties and/or the family court judge rely on or interpret the DR-6 calculations, this confusion created by the new DR-6 form could prevent an agreement between the parties or lead the court to believe unintentionally in the finances of one of the parties. they are different from what they really are.
Rhode Island’s new and improved DR-6 Statement of Assets and Liabilities is more detailed and extensive than ever and has positive possibilities for resolving family law cases, but without instructions for this new form, confusion persists.