Divorce Advice for Men | Fathers Rights Divorce | Child Custody

Question:

I am looking for advice on my divorce.

My ex-wife refuses to let me in her house and storage unit to get my property.

How can I get access to my personal property?

By Jennifer M. Paine

Attorney, Cordell & Cordell

Note: Part 1 addressed the importance of properly handling the division of personal property. Click here to read.

Personal property creates ambiance, marks your lifestyle, makes you you. It is OK to be attached to a set of wine glasses or to insist on keeping a particular painting, to ask for a book your mother gave you or the quilt your grandmother made. Garage sale prices for those items will not do because these items mean more to you than an everyday buyer. Therefore, the law gives them sentimental value. 

By Jennifer M. Paine

Attorney, Cordell & Cordell

Note: Part 2 addressed the sentimental value of personal property and how to properly value your property. Click here to read.

It’s a dangerous clause in your divorce decree: “Each party takes the personal property in that party’s possession, free and clear of any claim of the other.”

This clause is most often an after-thought, tucked away in the boilerplate, something to tidy-up the divorce after the big items – the pension, the home – are divided. With it, every last piece of personal property (that is, everything but land and what’s connected to it) is accounted for, from the sleeper sofa in the living room to the sleeping bags in the shed.

On the eve of trial or the brink of settlement, it is easy to toss in the towel and add this clause just “to move on.” After all, it makes little sense to spend $2,500 in attorney fees fighting for $500 in personal property, and no one wants to look like the wacko bickering over Christmas decorations and the pots and pans.

But, if handled correctly, your personal property does not have to be and should not be an after-thought.