Division Of Assets: How to Be Fair With divorce comes division of assets. In wealthy marriages, this can be complex and take several years. In less wealthy marriages, this can be a matter of months. No matter how long you need to divide your assets, it is important to take the right amount of time to be fair. People often have to decide how they will make a deal when it comes to division of assets. You want to make sure that both parties have enough time to decide what they will bargain for. People may have different things that are important to them, but it can take time to sift through items that have accumulated.
Whether the couple have been married for a short duration or a long time, they can have important assets that have to be divided differently. For instance, in some divorce cases everything gets split in half-the house is sold and the money is split; the real estate is divided evenly, and the household goods are divided exactly. In others, there are buyouts. One person keeps a large amount of items and pays the other person their amount of the total value in cash or stock. In still others, people share the items and basically loan them back and forth. This turns real estate basically into a timeshare, but it keeps people from having to split interest acquired on the real estate and cut their investment short.
To know what type of division is for you, it is important to give the other side enough time to realize what is at stake. People sometimes think they are up for bargaining for real estate or pets. They may get halfway into negotiations and realize that it is not quite worth what they thought in sweat and tears. So be fair by letting people think through their wants all the way. A carefully made list of wants is more worth each party’s time anyways. The lawyers will have an easier time, and so will the families of the divorcing couples as they decide where to spend time and money in the future.
The other way to be fair is to share the list of what is really important to you with the other side. In divorce negotiations, people usually have no idea what they are in for when it comes to division of assets. They may never know that the chandelier is the other person’s most prized possession. They may have no idea that the antique silver is worth a whole house to someone, even if the real values of the two items are not equal.