Dividing Marital Property: Recreational Interest Items

Marital property includes items that were purchased during marriage to engage in recreational activities or personal passions. These items will need to be valued and divided up. Our attorneys can advise you on how best to value the recreational items at issue in your divorce.

Dividing Items of Similar Value

It can be easy to divide up items used for recreational activities if the value of items that each party used for his or her activities was similar. For instance, the husband’s cycling gear may be similar in value to the wife’s golf gear. The challenge arises when one person’s hobbies or interests involve owning high value items, and the other person’s activities do not. When you add the value of the item to the marital “pot” of assets, you do not use the amount you paid for the item. Rather, the current value of the item is used.

Dividing Big-Ticket Items

Your attorney can advise you on ways to value just about any item or collection if the parties cannot agree. In the case of big-ticket items, such as recreational vehicles, four wheelers, motorcycles, jet skis, and boats, the process of determining a value is similar to the process of valuing a marital automobile.

You can also pay to have a professional appraisal done.  Further, you can search online to see what similar items are selling for used or to find persons who deal in these items used and ask for an informal suggestion as to their value.  Once the parties can agree on the approximate value of the recreational items, then it becomes easier for your lawyer to work with the parties to decide who is going to keep what, and how to offset recreational items against other marital property.