yeah well property division is probably

the most

difficult aspect of a family law case or

could be the simplest if people don’t

own much property but assuming they have

a complicated

estate you essentially have to value and

divide and allocate every single item of

property some are easier than others

some you could get formal appraisals but

of course you know let’s say you’re

valuing a house each side is going to

hire an appraiser they’re going to value

it differently

the court’s going to pick one

essentially they’re not going to split

it down the middle so that’s just an

example of value being able to

fluctuate tremendously depending on whom

you hire depending on their analysis of

the market but generally speaking

there’s not really any trends in case

law that i see

it’s pretty set in stone that if it’s

community property it’s divided 50 50.

where the difficulties come in is

characterizing it is it community

property is it separate property why it

you know what’s the value of an asset

because just two opinions could differ

tremendously on that um in terms of

business valuations i think those are

very difficult because

you tend to see that when you get

something valued for a family law case

it’s probably going to be less than just

what someone would be willing to pay on

the market you try and forecast that you

try and look at various factors of what

the business value would be but it’s

really hard to capture that without the

asset actually be on the market for sale

because even with with comparables

each business is different you don’t

know who the willing buyers are or if

there are any so it’s really difficult

to forecast every issue in a property

division and ultimately it really

behooves best parties to kind of meet in

the middle find where their best

strengths and weaknesses are as far as

their arguments find where the risks are

and just kind of middle point it and

identify what they’re each willing to

live with because it’s a lot of risk to

go into trial judges have a lot of

discretion experts are going to testify

to very different values and it’s really

hard to forecast where the the trial

judge is going to end up selecting the

value if it’s characterized a separate

property versus community property so to

the extent there can be middle ground

found it really behooves the clients to

do that and save themselves a lot of

legal fees arguing over in a trial when

there’s a lot of risk on what the final

outcome is going to be