Assets You Might Forget to Consider in Your Divorce

As you work through your divorce settlement, it’s understandable if most of your focus gets placed on child support and custody arrangements, alimony and major assets like houses, cars and retirement accounts. However, as you negotiate your settlement, make sure you are considering all your assets.

There are a few that often go unconsidered in divorce cases, including the following:

• Intellectual property: If you own any copyrights, patents, trademarks, blueprints, manuscripts or other forms of intellectual property, you should make sure to include them in your divorce settlement.
• Stock options: You might have stock options from your employer. These assets might not always seem particularly valuable, especially if not fully vested, but they could have some monetary value.
• Digital assets: Websites, blogs, domains, social media accounts, digital downloads and other digital assets are not always likely to have a lot of monetary value. But in some circumstances, it makes sense to establish who owns which digital assets after the divorce is finalized.
• Loans: Your debts are automatically considered in the asset division process. However, if either you or your spouse made personal loans to friends or family during the marriage, the balance and interest of those loans must be considered as part of your settlement.
• Pets: Divorces often include emotional arguments over who will take “custody” of pets. The monetary value of the pet can be important if it is a purebred or is otherwise valuable.
• Memberships: Any personal prepaid memberships to gyms, professional groups or other organizations or subscriptions that have already been paid should be considered in the settlement if they were paid with marital funds.

For more information on the assets you should consider during the divorce process, speak with a skilled Nassau County family law attorney at Bryan L. Salamone & Associates.