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723 - How Do We Divide Household Items?This is about pots and pans, washers and dryers, stereos, lawn mowers, the living room sofa. This is the everyday stuff that you used to make a home together. It can be the easiest to divide, or the toughest to divide, depending on how the two of you approach it. There's almost never a reason to get your lawyers or the judge involved in dividing up your household items. If you do, it's probably because one of you is trying to hold on to the marriage and doesn't want to reach an agreement. Assuming now that you really are trying to work it out, here are some suggestions. The general idea of all of this is to make the process of dividing the household goods as painless, and yet as certain as possible. If you're already separated, the one who has moved out probably has already taken some of the household items. Perhaps the approach you could use would be to get together and walk through the place where the two of you used to live together. You can then make a list of the items still in the marital home that you agree to remove. And you should actually remove them as soon as possible. Put them in a rental warehouse, or in an attic, or even in a friend's basement, but get them segregated as soon as you can so that's one less thing that might cause a misunderstanding later on. If you're still living in the same residence, you can go through the same kind of process. The only difference is that you'll have everything under one roof as you agree on who gets what. If you just cannot agree on how to divide some items, see if you can't agree on a list of them. Then you and your spouse go down the list and take turns choosing an item, just like choosing up sides for a kickball game. This sounds harsh and arbitrary, and it is. But when you can't agree any other way, it allows both of you to reach agreement and move on. One thing you need to be careful about when you divide household items. It's easy to forget things. There are some items people often overlook, or at least overlook a value for them. That's things like tools, which can be surprisingly valuable, and collections of dolls, spoons, baseball cards, whatever. Also record, CID, or video collections. Nearly everybody has electronic equipment like computers, TV's, and stereos. That's usually worth less than most people realize. One final caveat, this one primarily for men. Men often say something like "Well she'll get the china, crystal, and silver, of course." And that's not a problem, as long as you have some idea of what all that is worth. Nowadays, for example, a four‑piece place setting of sterling could easily go for 120 dollars or more. There may be real value in that drawer. It's okay to let it go, just know the value of what you're giving up. Alabama Family Law Center serves clients who need to get through divorce and who are able to be reasonably cooperative. The goal is for both spouses to survive divorce and move on with their lives with some money in their pockets and their dignity intact. No representation is made that the quality of the legal services to be performed is greater than the quality of legal services performed by other lawyers. If you'd like to make an appointment with me, call 205-979-6960. Or you can click here to return to the Divorce Line. |
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