Jason Brown a Minnesota divorce lawyer, talked last week about how to divide personal property during a divorce. It’s useful advice because while there’s lots of guidelines and rules about how to divide things worth a lot of money (house, car, investments), it’s unclear how to handle personal items.

Jason suggested using one of four methods:

Two Lists: One of you makes two lists of items, of roughly equal value. The lists are presented to the other. The person who didn’t draft the lists gets to pick which list they want. There is an incentive for the person drafting to fairly and equitably divide things or they’ll get burned during the selection process.

Silent Auction: This is my favorite. A master list of all of your personal property is created. Each party blindly puts a dollar value next to each item. The high bid takes the item at the value listed. Once all items are bid on, the totals for each party are added up. The party receiving the higher dollar value pays the other a cash equalizer to make up the other’s shortfall. Parties are free to place a high value on items they really want, but won’t list a ridiculous bid out of fear of paying a large offset.

Arbitration: An arbitrator is basically a private judge. You pay this person, usually a lawyer, to listen to your side of things in an informal conference setting. Then, your spouse does the same. The arbitrator is given the authority to divide the entire list of items as they deem fair and equitable. Costs are saved because the parties attend the arbitration without counsel and divide the arbitrator’s fee. Most couples submit to binding arbitration so that the decision of the arbitrator is final.

Rotating Lists: Make a master list and take turns going back and fourth until all of the personal property is divided. Flip a coin to see who goes first.

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1. Managing Money and Property in Gay Relationships
2. Gift Tax Consequenes of Adding Domestic Partner to Property Title