Family Law

How to Divide Personal Property in a Divorce Case

By Ben Stevens

Some people choose to spend a lot of time, effort, and money fighting over personal property.  However, as experienced family law attorneys know, there is a better way to handle those issues.  The following post explains a common sense approach to dividing personal property in a divorce (or separation) case:

The division of personal property in a divorce can be one of the most expensive, emotional, and wasteful parts of a case. Parties will often spend thousands of dollars arguing over a very inexpensive piece of personal property.

Personal property, meaning furniture, art, family photos, pets, and other general property, in a divorce is treated no differently than the division of other assets. A dollar value figure is placed on the property and the allocation of property is dealt with as part of the general division of assets and debts. For example, if all of the personal property is worth $20,000 and one party takes all of it, they would owe the other party $10,000 as either a cash payment or out of the division of some other asset or by taking on a similar amount of debt.

The better way to deal with the division is for the parties to agree on who takes what piece of furniture and not assign a dollar figure to anything. This can be more complicated with valuable artwork. Family photos are generally given to one party with the other party having an option to make copies.

If there is a clear dispute over which property each party wants, the easiest method is to have the personal property appraised. The appraiser will make a list of all property and assign dollar values to each piece and then the judge can make a determination of how it is divided.

Some property is not included as a marital asset. Generally this happens with jewelry or other clear gifts that were intended to be given to the other party and not shared. In that case, there will be no offset and the property will go to the party whom received the gift. One example is that a wedding ring always stays with the party who received it.

Source: "How to Divide Personal Property in a Divorce" by Daniel Margolin, posted at The Oregon Divorce Blog.

Full post as published by SC Family Law Blog on November 13, 2009 (boomark / email).