Years, sometimes decades, worth of furniture, china, tools, books, DVDs, and Christmas ornaments need to be separated at the time of a divorce.
As with all marital property issues in the State of Colorado, the law requires the court to divide the personal property accumulated during a marriage fairly and justly. However, the judge isn’t going to go through the marital home for you and make sure you each get an equal number of forks, spoons, and Tupperware containers. If you and your soon-to-be ex cannot agree on the division of personal property yourselves, a Court will be more likely to take a hatchet than a scalpel to the personal property at issue.
The best thing to do if you are in the middle of or contemplating a divorce is to go through the home and think about the items you want most. Select the items that not only have monetary value, but also the things that have sentimental value, and ask the Court to award you those items. This is also not the time to try to take the things that have value to the other party (like a painting of your soon-to-be ex painted by your soon-to-be ex-father-in-law) just to spite them. If you don’t know what a reticulated saw is, or does, then don’t ask the judge to award it to you. If you hated the dusty English rose china pattern your soon-to-be ex-wife picked out then don’t ask for it. After all, if you argue about things that are immaterial or have no value, precious time and money (if you have an attorney) will be spent on something that you can go out and buy new at Wal-Mart.
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