You and your spouse have invested a lot of money and time into your marriage. If you’re now on the journey toward a divorce, you’ve realized that you might not know how much your assets are worth.
You’ve taken the time to track down your biggest assets, but there are some discrepancies between what you think your assets are worth versus what your spouse believes. How can you resolve the dispute?
Get a professional to appraise your assets
One thing that you should both want to do is to make sure the value of your assets is confirmed by professionals who can give you a good appraisal of their worth. For example, if you have a home you want to sell, you should look at local home prices, speak with a realtor and have your home appraised. If you are trying to sell your vehicle, use a practical guide, like Kelly Blue Book, or get estimates from those in the industry to see how much you can sell it for privately or to a dealer.
You and your spouse may want to have your asset values established separately before comparing notes. If one asset has a high value from one professional but a lower value from another, you may want to estimate that the lower rate is more likely to be accurate. On the other hand, you could also find the average value and use that for negotiations, too.
With the right values in place, you’ll be able to see more clearly the amount of money that is at stake in your divorce, so you can negotiate for marital property that you want at the value you deserve.