Divorce Lawyer: Thoughts on Movables Jointly Owned

For a divorce lawyer, it is routine to face the scenario where each spouse wishes to get everything that they possibly can from the other spouse, regardless of whether this is actually advantageous or even logical on their own part. There can be effective strategies to employ when dividing assets in order to maximize the value that a client receives, but it is crucial that the spouses are at the very minimum being rational in their decision making when going through a contested breakup.

One area that the client should not want to get deeply involved in is with dividing movable property on a temporary basis when it is possible to divide the property in a more permanent way. While this can be logical, it is easier sometimes simply to go to court and request that the other side give you half of the movables pending a formal division. The problem with doing it this way is that it can be enormously expensive for the two sides to fight over everyday household items that in reality have little value.

Knowing that it is likely that it will be too expensive to hire your divorce lawyer to go after all of the small movables that was in the joint possession and ownership of you and your other spouse, it could be possible to work around this. This is because, if the law in your locality allows for you to take the items then, then it should be possible for you to simply remove the jointly owned items when you feel like doing so. This should make it so that the other spouse has to spend time and money trying to get the things back.

There are a couple of caveats that you should consider before doing this, in addition to whatever the law in your local area says about this. The first is to make sure that the items that you are removing are, indeed, jointly owned. You do not want your spouse to have you charged with theft. The second is to make sure that there is no civil injunction or other legal mechanism, likely put in place by one side’s divorce lawyer, barring either side from removing any property.

The third is that it is important to make sure that your spouse does not have a protective order against you or any other type of restraining order preventing you from going near either a protected person or a protected piece of property. Violating these can have huge repercussions.

Additionally, it will not look good in a child custody hearing if you removed all of the necessary belongings for your children to continue normal functioning, just to spite your wife and attempt to gain the upper hand in a property division.

The reason that you could want to do this is that when you two actually divide the property, your divorce lawyer will likely value the property for what it is worth to a third person. This means that the value of the movables will likely be far less that what you paid for them. Again, on the other side of this argument, there is a lot of potential risk in simply seizing the jointly owned items and it could be expensive to get a divorce lawyer to do so.

The above material is intended for information purposes only. It is not intended as professional legal advice and should not be construed as such. Attorney William H. Beaumont practices in New Orleans, La.