What's It Worth?: Smart Strategies for Appraisals • Your Divorce Case
Demystifying the Appraisal Process in Divorce
Seth and Pete dive deep into the complex world of appraisals during divorce proceedings. Whether you're dealing with real estate, wine collections, artwork, or vintage electronics, understanding how items are valued can significantly impact your divorce settlement.
Getting your assets properly appraised is crucial for fair distribution in a divorce, but timing and strategy matter. Seth and Pete explore the differences between full appraisals and market analyses, when to get items appraised, and how to handle situations where collections or assets may be damaged or hidden. Through real examples and practical scenarios, they break down the systematic approach professional appraisers use to determine value.
Questions we answer in this episode:
When is the best time during divorce proceedings to get items appraised?
Should both parties get separate appraisals or share one appraiser?
How do courts handle significant differences between competing appraisals?
Key Takeaways:
Start the appraisal process early, especially for valuable collections
Document everything with photos and receipts before moving items
For items you want to keep, lower valuations work in your favor during settlement
This episode provides essential knowledge for anyone navigating property division in divorce. Seth and Pete offer practical guidance on protecting your interests while maintaining transparency in the appraisal process. Their discussion of real-world cases and strategic considerations makes complex appraisal concepts accessible and actionable.Links & Notes
Got a question you want to ask on the show? Click here!
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Pete Wright:
Welcome to How to Split a Toaster, a divorce podcast about saving your relationships from TruStory FM. Today, did you know your toaster was a vested landowner?
Seth Nelson:
Welcome to show everybody. I'm Seth Nelson. As always, I'm here with my good friend Pete Wright, and we are talking about appraisals. But see, Pete-
Pete Wright:
What?
Seth Nelson:
You've gotten this off on the wrong foot because you're like landowner. Okay. I can't say it the way you did. And you're thinking that people only appraise real property like a house.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
But there's all sorts of things that can be appraised.
Pete Wright:
Like your behavior.
Seth Nelson:
Let's just say someone loves to collect electronics from a bygone era and hang them on the wall, like their first iPhone or iPod or whatever. That is collectibles, which can be appraised.
Pete Wright:
Thank you.
Seth Nelson:
Do you know anyone that might collect such things?
Pete Wright:
I think my collection is worth exactly as much as the command strips that hang them there.
Seth Nelson:
Okay. So how much are used command strips going for these days? But you would be wrong on that, Pete.
Pete Wright:
I've been told that I need to de-blur my background so people can see my collection. It goes multiple walls. So many walls of stuff.
Seth Nelson:
Pete, how much do you think the very first Apple computer, if you had one of the first ones out, would be worth today?
Pete Wright:
I don't think it would hang on my wall, so probably less after it fell off.
Seth Nelson:
That's true.
Pete Wright:
I would guess a couple of hundred thousand dollars. They go heavy.
Seth Nelson:
Right. So in Florida, just so everyone knows, when you're dealing with personal property, such as items that we're talking about that Pete has hanging on his wall, it is garage sale value unless you get someone else to come in and appraise it. So if you have an art collection, which we're going to talk about, if you have cars, those can be appraised. If you have a wine collection, watches, jewelry, all of these personal items can be appraised. And so everything we're going to talk about including real estate, because everyone's like, "Oh, we need an appraisal." You're getting a mortgage, the bank wants an appraisal because they want to make sure that it's worth what you say it is and how much they're going to lend you. But all of these things can be appraised and there's a process to appraisals and we're going to talk more about the process that can be applied to all these different types of items that might be appraised in a divorce case.
Pete Wright:
Okay. So then let's start with the process. And from your perspective as the attorney, when should divorcing couples get their stuff appraised? How does that process start?
Seth Nelson:
You start early because personal property is always the thing that people forget to talk about. And then you work with Tammy Spahr, a great mediator, and you're there for 10 hours and you're getting ready to finish this very long, intense mediation and someone says, "Well, I got a list of things that I want." And the lawyers are just like, "Ugh. Really? We're doing this at the end?" And then it's literally the proverbial pots and pans. But then they say, "Well, he's got a watch collection." Well, I'm not going to be able to appraise that at 10:00 at night in Tammy Spahr's office at a mediation. Right?
Pete Wright:
Well, and you're not going to appraise it at all.
Seth Nelson:
At all. I'm not going to be able to value it. I'm not going to be able to get an appraisal on it. I'm not going to be able to do anything with it.
Pete Wright:
So don't count on your attorney for that.
Seth Nelson:
Do you really want to argue about this at this late hour? So the question becomes, is there anything that you believe there is monetary value to that is worth the time and expense of getting it appraised? Because it's not free. So when do you get it appraised is a great question. So let's say there's a wine collection and you say, "You know what? My husband loves wine. He loves that collection. He spent tens of thousands of dollars on wine." It's in a cellar, it's stored at a wine facility, whatever the case may be. Okay. You get that? Whatever the case, case of wine. A little subtle there.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. No, I-
Seth Nelson:
You didn't laugh.
Pete Wright:
I got it. I didn't want to give you the satisfaction.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah, I know. But when do you get that appraised? Well, the first thing is if you think it's got that much value, then you want to get that appraised as close to mediation as possible with enough time for them to review it on the other side. And the reason for that is that is a passive item. It's either going to go up in value or down in value, not based on any work that you do. Like the stock market. So you want to be as close to mediation as possible. And if you don't get it settled then, you might want to get it reappraised close to trial. An updated appraisal, which are less expensive. Because anything that has a passive gain or loss, you want to go to court and usually be as close to trial to say, "Hey, here's what it's worth today."
Pete Wright:
Yeah, I was just thinking about that. Look at people with extraordinary comic collections or ... I mean, we have a Captain America movie coming out. It seems that potentially the value of historic Captain America comics might go up on that movie as there's new attention. So you want to make sure that your appraisal is probably at the high point.
Seth Nelson:
Well, interesting you say that. If you want to keep the item, you want it at the low point.
Pete Wright:
Right. Okay. Of course.
Seth Nelson:
If you want to keep it and you get the high point, you're paying more for your own collection, which people really hate doing. The other thing that you really need to be aware of, if possible, is if you're a collector, Pete ... I think comic books are a really good example because you collected before you got married. So do you have a line of, "Oh, I got these prior to marriage. They're non-marital." versus what I collected after? That's hard to do because you don't get married thinking, "You know what, one day she's going to want to appraise my comic book collection."
Pete Wright:
Right. Nobody does that.
Seth Nelson:
No one has ever thought that when she's walking down the aisle.
Pete Wright:
Except now they will.
Seth Nelson:
Now. We are changing the future right here on The Toaster. Okay. So there's all this marital, non-marital stuff, but when you go for an appraisal, here's what the appraiser does. First off, they have to identify what they're appraising. If there's a house, boom, there's the house. But if it's a comic book collection or a collection of anything, how many bottles of wine, how many comic books? What year? Now you're just identifying. As much identification as possible. Then they have to look on what I just say, the quality of the item. And it's a broad term. Is your comic book in mint condition? It's in a sleeve. It's never been turned. Right?
Pete Wright:
Do you have a wine cellar full of open bottles of wine?
Seth Nelson:
Right. And I'm going to do this as a little test to my uncle who is a big wine guy, and I offered to buy his entire collection for $5 a bottle. And he's a doctor and I'm a lawyer, and we make fun of each other and he's an idiot. And here's why. He said no. And I said, "That's really dumb." He's like, "Why would I ever do that?" And I said, "I never said they had to have wine in them. I could have bought empty bottles."
Pete Wright:
You could have.
Seth Nelson:
He could have made a fortune. And he would've dumped out really nice wine just to make me buy the bottle empty. So I'll see if he mentions it when he listens to The Toaster.
Pete Wright:
Sounds like you guys are doing great.
Seth Nelson:
Okay. So what is the quality of it? To your point, is it open? Is it not? Was the wine always kept in a stable condition? Like comic books are originals, but is the artwork original or is it a print? Is anything have special significance that goes beyond just the quality of the item?
Pete Wright:
Autographs.
Seth Nelson:
Autographs. Because some wine bottles are signed by the winemaker. Watches usually don't have signed anything, but certainly a comic book could be signed. Sports paraphernalia. That can be big, especially if it's signed. So there's a lot of different things. So you got identification, the quality of the item, and I always call any special circumstances that we need to talk about.
Pete Wright:
What is a special circumstance?
Seth Nelson:
If it's signed or whatever.
Seth Nelson:
Oh, that's a special ... Got it.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Just something special that's different. And then you go to value. So how do they value it? This is what they do. They identify it, they look at the quality, they look if there's any special signatures or qualities about it, and then they go do research. They compare it to other items that are of similar nature and what are those selling for? So they're going to be an expert in appraisals and they are going to have to go rely on a body of knowledge out there, and you're going to have to decide did they rely on the correct body of knowledge. And one way you do that is are they certified as an appraisal? Because if they're a certified appraiser, which they should be, then there's going to be rules that they follow on how they do appraisals, and that's where you can attack them. Did they follow the rules?
Pete Wright:
Okay. So I understand that there is a difference. I think this is what you're getting at. There's a difference between what they call a full appraisal and what they call a competitive market analysis on an item.
Seth Nelson:
Yes. Yes. So right here, I'm not going to turn it around because it's confidential, we have an appraisal. Right here, we have a market analysis. This one was based on rent. This one, the appraisal was a full sale. But you can do a market analysis. So we're going to talk about real property because that's a great question. Real property, you have appraisers that banks hire when you buy a house. And you say, "Hey, I'm buying this house. I'm getting a loan from the bank. It's contingent on financing." The banks will not give you the financing if you're buying a million-dollar house, but it's only worth 500,000. If you're paying a million and it's only worth 500 ... So they're going to have an independent appraiser to go out there and say, "This house is worth 500." They're like, "I'm not loaning you the money. You're overpaying. We're not going to have a secured interest." Right?
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Right. And when that appraiser comes to your house, they really come to your house. They make your house turn its head and cough. They really are looking at all of the elements of the house that make it a sound investment.
Seth Nelson:
That's exactly right. Now, you as the buyer, might not care what the appraiser says. You think it's worth a million. If you're paying cash, you wouldn't even have an appraiser. But that's why the banks do it. Now, you get these people that work for banks but also will come testify in court. So we use appraisers all the time. But you also have that market analysis. The market analysis is usually done for real estate by a real estate agent or a broker. Because what they do, they're going to look at the most recent comps in a geographical area, and they're going to say, "This was the square footage, this was this. I would list the house for a million. I would expect it to close around 800, 850,000." Making up numbers. That's the market analysis. Because-
Pete Wright:
But those people are not going to your house. They're just looking at numbers. They're not visiting, they're not looking at the state of things. They might open Google Maps.
Seth Nelson:
Maybe. It depends. And you're getting to the point, Pete, is how much work are they really doing? And so then that goes to did they follow the rules on what they're supposed to do? And then there's always an assumption. One of the assumption is did you go to the house? No. Let me show you the inside picture of this house with its kitchen torn out. Did your market analysis hold? What assumptions did you make? I assume that the kitchen was working, that there was no electrical problems, that the pool maintenance was up to date. There's all these assumptions that you can attack.
Pete Wright:
So what I'm getting at in my line of thinking right now is at what point do you as the representation of one of the parties take on the effort of getting your own appraiser if there is another appraiser already working? Should each party have its own appraisal done in the course of a case?
Seth Nelson:
Well, it depends on whether or not you want to do a joint appraisal.
Pete Wright:
What does that mean?
Seth Nelson:
You both hire them and say, "Yeah, we're not going to each spend $1,000 on an appraisal or 750 bucks and we don't want to have dueling appraisals in court, so we'll just pick one." And people are like, "Okay. But now I don't want to use anyone that Mr. Nelson suggests because he probably knows people that do them high and some do it low and his client wants to keep the house, so he'll do a lower appraisal." So then you can be like, "Okay. We'll get two appraisals and we'll take the average." Or we'll say, "We'll take the average as long as their numbers are within 5% of each other." You're not going to take the average if some guy says a million.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. And another guy says $250,000. Right.
Seth Nelson:
Right. Somebody's off here.
Pete Wright:
But what we're getting at is that's an agreed-upon strategy between parties on how you're going to handle ... It's not like the judge is saying you have to do this with your appraisals every time. There are no rules apart from finding agreement.
Seth Nelson:
No rules on this. It's what evidence do you want to present in court? Here we're saying we need an appraisal because we need to have an expert. Now, in Florida, if you're the owner, you can testify to value. You don't need an appraisal. But, "Okay, I relied on Zillow." "No. Objection, judge." And they can say, "Judge, Zillow says they could be 20% off either way. I don't think that's competent, substantial evidence on value."
Pete Wright:
And what happens when your expert appraiser comes in, one of them comes in with a value that's just way off the mark? So you have one that feels all right, one that agrees with comps and one that's just out of left field.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah. I'm going to attack it. Why are yours different? On this appraisal, he added subtracted $30,000 because this house didn't have a pool and the house next door does have a pool. You didn't subtract anything for the fact that he doesn't have a pool. So one, digging into their rules on what they did. And then what all of them are going to do, they're going to value it. And you can see if they did the rules, but they collect data. So the big thing is did you go inside? What did you do to collect the data? And I think of this literally in physical terms. Did you walk the property? Did you look at the watches? Did you make sure they were doing it? Did you taste the wine? Okay, I don't have them taste the wine. That'd be nice though.
Pete Wright:
But it is a question because we were talking about ... Did you read the comic books? We were talking about comic books and wine, and when we went to the market analysis, we switched to real property, but all of this could happen to any collection, right?
Seth Nelson:
Yeah. Any collections. There could be someone that is certified in what they do on wine, and there'll be collectors and people that will use appraisals to do it. And then there's other guys that are just wine brokers and they'll come in and say, "Hey, this is what I'd list it for." So it's the same for all of them. It's just easier to understand in real estate because people know there's a realtor and then there's their appraisal. Yeah, absolutely.
Pete Wright:
So where are we in the process? I feel like I may have sidetracked us.
Seth Nelson:
It's all right. They collect data. So they're going to identify it, they're going to figure out the quality. It's not necessarily linear. Any special circumstances. They're trying to define the value, but they're going to collect the data. So where are they getting their data, Pete? Are they just Googling stuff? Are there Wine Spectator? Kelly Blue book for cars is very ripe for value. Do you take the car down to CarMax and say, "What will you give me for this car today?" Which is good for seven days. That's a way to get a value. So how are they collecting data and then how are they recording the data? Well, did you take notes? Did you put it in your system? Did you put it on the computer? Did you take a picture of the offer that you got from CarMax?
And so you collect the data and then you got to store it, and then you do your analysis and come to your conclusion. All along those steps, it's ripe for assumptions and to be attacked. Well, how did you collect your data? Well, I just went to CarMax and I asked them." "Okay. Did you save the paperwork?" "No." "How many cars did you appraise between January 5th when you went to CarMax and let's call it March 5th when you came out with your report?" "40 cars." "Okay. Well, how did you remember what the value was on this car?" "Oh, I just remembered." That doesn't sound very persuasive.
Pete Wright:
It's not compelling. Okay.
Seth Nelson:
Right. So you got to look at how they collect the data, how did they store the data, what analysis do they do? What systems and books and information do they rely on to do their analysis? And then they come to their conclusion. But when you have your conclusion, you put it in a report. And that's what we get as the lawyers. We get the report. So now when you go through the report, you have to see, did they tell you how they did things? Did they tell you how they collected the data? Did they identify the right item? I've looked at some before and they say, here's this watch collection. And they go through it and the watches don't match. They misidentified step one.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Okay.
Seth Nelson:
So it can be a tedious process depending on the number of items. It can be a very detailed process. By way of example, artwork can be really expensive to value.
Pete Wright:
Just because appraisers are expensive with that level of expertise?
Seth Nelson:
The process. Because here's the problem with artwork. If you have artwork in your home, most homeowners that have artwork will not have a sprinkler system because if a fire goes off, the sprinkler system's going to ruin the artwork.
Pete Wright:
So will a fire though also.
Seth Nelson:
That's true. That's true. But a fire in the kitchen, Pete, where the smoke detectors go off and the sprinklers come is ... Right. But if you live in a condominium, you're required to have sprinklers. So some people that live in condos will have artwork that they store in a facility. Now you have to go to the facility with your appraisal, unpack it, have them look at it, photograph it, take the photograph with them to document what they saw, and then they go do the research. Now, if the other side wants to do the appraisal as well, you should coordinate it at the same time because otherwise you're unpacking and packing twice. That can be at a very expensive process, not to mention all the time and effort they have to do in actually appraising these items because it also goes to a range. Because we all know if you do private sale at the car is a different number than if you go to CarMax than is different if you just trade it in.
So how are you doing these sales? What are they saying? Are you giving something to Christie's and they're going to take a percentage? But going to Christie's for your item might not be the best because Christie wants a certain type of item to sell at auction where yours might not be at that level so you could get more elsewhere at a smaller house selling it. So there's a lot that goes into this. And it's not just well, the number's the number. No, that's not how it works.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. I imagine any of the high-end collectible watches, I imagine it's going to be similar if you don't keep your collection at home. But I get artwork. I saw that in a movie once. Tenet, I think they had ... Did you see Tenet? Christopher Nolan movie. There's a big vault scene. It was tough.
Seth Nelson:
Oh, I didn't.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, you should appraise that. We're going to have to do a special episode.
Seth Nelson:
You know The Italian Job and all those movies?
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
I got to tell you, when I was a child, I always wanted to be the world-renowned diamond theft guy, but here's what I wanted to do. I would never want to really steal it because that's not who I am and I'm terrified of jail. I wanted to be so good that the Vatican would hire me to try to break in.
Pete Wright:
Yes. You want to be the stunt thief.
Seth Nelson:
That's right. And show where their flaws are.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. I can see you doing that.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah. I got a couple Bibles here. I'm not telling you where they came from.
Pete Wright:
Because you're spry like a cat.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah, right. When people see me, that's exactly what they say, Pete. "Oh, Mr. Nelson is so spry today."
Pete Wright:
Let me ask you some questions about conflict in this process.
Seth Nelson:
Sure.
Pete Wright:
How do you handle when you suspect or discover that one party has done something to damage or devalue a collection that you're trying to appraise with intention?
Seth Nelson:
Oh. This has happened. And it's not just on appraisals, it's on personal property. And there was actually an appellate case on this where a party defamed and cut up their spouse's sports memorabilia.
Pete Wright:
That sounds vindictive.
Seth Nelson:
They won on appeal, but ultimately they lost because it was never appraised but he put the value. I think that case was like $12,000, but it was never appraised. And so the court goes, "Yeah, she owes you 12 grand." But it was a lot of work to get there. But what you would do is say two things. One, "Judge, if this was in mint condition, this is what it would be worth." And she devalued it. Right?
Pete Wright:
What's really great about that is it could be kind of a self-own. She could devalue it and then devalue it beyond the value that it actually would've gotten because it wasn't say mint.
Seth Nelson:
Right.
Pete Wright:
And then actually end up owing more in the settlement.
Seth Nelson:
In the process. And she would argue, "Well, it wasn't mint condition. It had beer stains on that jersey or champagne stains." And we're like, "Judge, it did have champagne stains from the Super Bowl."
Pete Wright:
Right. From the Stanley Cup. Right.
Seth Nelson:
Right. Exactly. Absolutely. And that happens. Here's the hard thing. Things go missing. So when you said, when do you do this stuff? If you have a collection and you're going through a divorce and you think your spouse is going to be vindictive, take a picture of every single bottle, take a picture of everything and move it to a safe location.
Pete Wright:
Move it to a safe location.
Seth Nelson:
And get your receipts. Say, "Judge, here it is." You're going to be very transparent. "I moved it. I was afraid she was going to destroy it. I moved it because I thought he was going to drink my wine. And he doesn't even like wine." So you got to be careful because once it's gone, it's gone. And especially if it's something that's a consumable like wine. "Yeah, Judge, every Friday night we opened a bottle of wine. I just did that and I'm sorry that this litigation took three years and we have-"
Pete Wright:
I've been thirsty since.
Seth Nelson:
150 bottles less.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Does that impression somehow taint or impact the judge's opinion about one or both parties?
Seth Nelson:
The answer is yes, but I think our judges have a really hard job, and I think that they work really hard to get through all what I would classify as the drama to the right decision. But people are people and people like to do things for people that they like. And if a judge thinks you're credible and honest ... And it could go one or the other, and the judge thinks the other one is not credible and not honest and has done all these negative things, which way do you think that judge is going to rule? Right?
Pete Wright:
Well, so one more related question. We were talking about doing something to damage or devalue. Let's talk about real property now. Because potentially someone is living in the house and they could either do something to not treat the house properly and devalue it on appraisal or during the separation process, during the divorce process, maybe they make improvements to it. Maybe they refinish a bathroom or something. I assume you're just tracking value over time.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah. That is active appreciation or depreciation as opposed to passive. So active, you have to do something. So in your hypothetical, which is a great one, they actively fixed up a bathroom, they added a bedroom. Well, that active appreciation needs to be accounted for, but the question is, where did the money come from to do it? Was it non-marital money or marital money? And in Florida, there's actually a statute that has a formula that you use for non-marital real property. You get married, you own the property, it has a mortgage, and you pay the mortgage down during the marriage. That lowers the principle owed on the mortgage. That part is marital. And then there's this whole fractions that you go through to figure out what if any value on that has increased over time. So it can get complicated.
Pete Wright:
So you figured that out. You've been thinking about this. This wasn't a thing that I just came up with.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah. I stay up at night thinking about this stuff. My wife is like, "Let's watch a movie." And I'm like, "I want to think about-"
Pete Wright:
I got to think about real property right now.
Seth Nelson:
Real property and appraisals and how it's going to play out in a case that I currently don't have. She loves me.
Pete Wright:
Outstanding. Tell me about things like virtual appraisals. Do you use virtual appraisals? Is that part of the process?
Seth Nelson:
I haven't because I need someone to come into court and sit down and tell me what they're going to tell me.
Pete Wright:
Okay.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
That seems like-
Seth Nelson:
Any other questions, Pete? Because I'm going to tell you, you're going to hear a knock on your door because I got an appraisal coming for all those electronics hanging there.
Pete Wright:
Do we somehow have shared custody over my old recorders? This is going to be great.
Seth Nelson:
No. I just want to know their value. I'm willing to pay someone to tell me that they're not worth shit.
Pete Wright:
Hey, I'm not your uncle. This has been super useful. I mean, any other hot topics that were on your list? I feel like we covered a lot today.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah, we did. I think the only thing is that you might want to do an updated appraisal if you get closer to trial, if it's a passive appreciation deal. And in Florida ... Check your local jurisdiction. This is really important for trial. In Florida, if one appraisal says it's worth $100,000 and another appraisal says it's worth $200,000, okay, there are a hundred grand off. Now, that sounds like a lot when you're 100, 200, but let's make it bigger. Wine collection is worth one million. The other guy says it's worth 1.4 million or 1.2 million. So they're 200 grand apart, but percentage wise, 20%. Okay. So now the question is one appraisal, one million, the other 1.2. Can the judge just say, "We're going to call it 1.1. I'm just going to split the difference between these two guys."?
Pete Wright:
Yeah, suddenly that's a very easy decision over a significant amount of money.
Seth Nelson:
Right. And the answer in Florida is no. The judge cannot just split the difference.
Pete Wright:
But the judge is splitting the difference all the time in other areas. What do you do?
Seth Nelson:
Yes. Here's why. Because the judge does not have competent, substantial evidence on 1.1 million. It can believe the value of a million, or the judge can believe the value of 1.2.
Pete Wright:
But not 1.1. So can the judge just say, "I believe the higher one. I'm going to go for that."?
Seth Nelson:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
The judge can say that, but can't split the difference?
Seth Nelson:
Yes. And the judge could say, "I found it more credible because of this, this and this." Now, sometimes they'll give ranges. It will be between one million and 1.2, and maybe the other guy comes in, "Judge, the range is between 1.1 and 1.3." Well, now they're both in the range and the judge could pick because there's testimony to that.
Pete Wright:
Okay. So it's in your best interest when there's a split to have a range, it seems like, if you want to move toward a decision.
Seth Nelson:
Well, it depends on are you a gambler? Are you like, "No. I think my appraisal is better and I want to keep my wine collection and I want it valued lower." And here's crazy about this. This is the thing that is really taken home, and I got two more points that I think are important. Only in your divorce case do you want your collection to be at a low value. Because you got to pay your spouse for half of it.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
Right. You go around bragging around town that, "I got a $3 million wine collection. I got all these watches and comic books." What do you think they're worth? "Oh, I don't know." And you give these big numbers and then your spouse goes, "He's been bragging around town and all this is worth all this. And now he's saying, when you're getting divorced, it's not worth shit?" Okay? So that's one thing. Here's the other way to solve this problem without an appraisal. Your wife comes to you and says, "You've been bragging all day your wine collection is worth $2 million." You just look at her and say, "You can have it for two million." Which tells you it's not really worth 2 million.
Pete Wright:
Okay.
Seth Nelson:
Right?
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Because now we're negotiating.
Seth Nelson:
I had this case where I represented the wife and literally the husband's like, "She's got $300,000 in jewelry." And the wife said, "He can have it all for 300 Gs." Because she knew she didn't have $300,000 worth of jewelry. And then right when you tell them, "I'll sell it to you for that, Judge." And I've seen people go to court and get hammered on that because the wife comes in and goes, "Judge, I think it's worth 50 grand in jewelry, but if he thinks it's worth 300, you can give him all the jewelry in his column."
Pete Wright:
Wow.
Seth Nelson:
And then they look over at the husband who's now really nervous.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
Yep. Because remember, you got to end up with distribution. Who's going to get it? And when you get it, you owe the other person half in equitable distribution. And let's just be clear, this is all about division of assets and debts. Equitable distribution. That's where we are.
Pete Wright:
Anything we need to consider when some of your stuff, collection, wine, whatever is not in your domicile, not even in your state, maybe not even in your country?
Seth Nelson:
Yeah. If you own it, you've got care, custody and control of it, it needs to be disclosed.
Pete Wright:
But the appraisal process is not geographically dependent?
Seth Nelson:
You got some electronics hanging out in the Cayman Islands? What do you got there?
Pete Wright:
No. Look, here's the thing. Look, I don't know, but Andy, Producer Andy, who will not be spoken of ever.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
So he wrote this. This is what he wrote. "Not sure we want to go here," which is always a setup.
Seth Nelson:
Yes.
Pete Wright:
"But this all ties into the Brad Pitt, Angelina vineyard that she sold without permission from him during the proceedings." And I wrote, of course, "I don't know anything about it. I'm shocked." I don't know where the vineyard was. I assume it was in California. But it did get me thinking about, that was another question.
Seth Nelson:
I think it was France. Yeah. That was an issue. She sold it. He was arguing she didn't have the right to sell it. It's now gone. And so what is the value? And was it the value on the day that she sold it? And he's going to say no because she didn't have a right to sell it and now today it would've been worth more. And that divorce went on for eight years.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, it was miserable. So you know all about that already. I didn't know a thing about that.
Seth Nelson:
I know some things.
Pete Wright:
But about Brangelina?
Seth Nelson:
Hey, there's some things that are attorney-client privilege I can't talk about.
Pete Wright:
I had lunch with a friend today. He's happily married, and said he listens to this show and was very pleased with it, liked it a lot. I said, "You're happily married." He said, "Hey, I may not want to build a house, but I'd like to know how to use a hammer."
Seth Nelson:
Okay. I think that's a good way to end the show.
Pete Wright:
I do too. So to all of you in whatever state of separation you may be, we are glad that you are here.
Seth Nelson:
Or none at all.
Pete Wright:
Or none at all. We thank you so much for downloading and listening to this show. We appreciate your time and your attention. Don't forget howtosplitatoaster.com. You can head right over there and hit the button that says submit a question, and we'll get your question and we will answer it on an upcoming episode. We've got two, count them, two listener questions episodes on the way as we get close to wrapping up our fair season 10. On behalf of Seth Nelson, America's favorite divorce attorney, I'm Pete Wright, and we'll see you right back here next week on How to Split A Toaster, a divorce podcast about saving your relationships.
Speaker 3:
How to Split a Toaster is part of the TruStory FM Podcast Network, produced by Andy Nelson, music by T.Bless and the Professionals and DB Studios. Seth Nelson is an attorney with NLG Divorce and Family Law with offices in Tampa, Florida. While we may be discussing family law topics, How to Split a Toaster is not intended to, nor is it providing legal advice. Every situation is different. If you have specific questions regarding your situation, please seek your own legal counsel with an attorney licensed to practice law in your jurisdiction. Pete Wright is not an attorney or employee of NLG Divorce and Family Law. Seth Nelson is licensed to practice law in Florida.
