Tools of the trade and divorce

What happens if your tools of your trade are significant in value and you are getting divorced? How are they dealt with?

Lots of people argue about who gets what in the divorce – and many of those disputes might include items like furniture, artwork, vehicles and so on – things that can be moved relatively easily but which might have significant financial and / or emotional value.

But what happens when the tools of your trade are valuable too?

A really good example of that is musical instruments.

A professional musician may own one or more instruments which are worth a great deal of money. Are they assets, tools of their trade or something between the two?

Let’s presume that the instruments are not used in a professional setting to earn an income.  If that’s the case, they are probably personal “chattels” – i.e belongings. In which case you can either try and agree a value for them or, absent agreement, it may be necessary to choose a suitable expert valuer for that to be established. Very high value personal items can end up being physically shared on divorce or sold to obtain the value as cash for division where there is a need to do so (as often you can’t usually just split the items in two!).

A lot of time, effort and energy can go into trying to sort out the personal belongings in a home, sometimes because it isn’t agreed who should have what, what is personal or joint in nature and how to share things that have a lot of value (whether that’s financial and/or emotional value). Save in the very high value items world, most of the time, it isn’t worth paying your lawyers to argue about the day-to-day things like the contents of the house if you can find a sensible way to sort this out.

If, however, the instruments enable the person to earn an income, they might be considered to be a business asset instead of a personal one. The starting point may still be to try and agree a value for them but not necessarily with the intention of them being sold.

A person earning a living as a musician needs a decent instrument (or several instruments perhaps). Whilst the item in question might be worth a lot of money, it’s still part of the person’s ability to earn a living and meet their income needs. So, it isn’t as simple as selling it and dividing it with the other spouse on divorce because that would then interfere with the player’s ability to earn a living. That in turn might put more pressure on the income of the non-player to support them whilst they sort out another income stream.

The instruments, whilst tools of the trade, could still form part of a business which is considered matrimonial in nature and thus available for sharing on divorce in some way. In reality, depending on factors such as what other assets there might be of the marriage, the person who earns the living playing them, will probably need to keep them.

Of course this doesn’t just apply to musical instruments, any belongings and assets with value such as tools, work vehicles, cameras and many, many more items can also be considered.

But, if there are other assets such as property, savings, shares etc, then discussions may be had around how those are shared to reflect the retention of the instruments – with the overall aim always being to try to achieve a legally fair outcome for both parties.

So, whilst the law is recorded in black and white, much like a musical score; how it is applied and interpreted is as individual to you and your (ex) spouse as to how one musician might interpret a piece from the next player too.

We always recommend seeking expert legal advice before you set out on any journey towards a divorce or dissolution so that you understand what you need to consider and act upon before you start.

For more information please contact Geldards Family Team below.