Missouri Family Law Blog

What is one of the fastest ways to incur unnecessary attorney fees? Not agreeing upon the division of household goods. Keep in mind that from the judge’s perspective the last thing he/she wants to spend time on in the courtroom is dividing up your household goods. The judge has a large number of cases to get through and a short amount of time to do so.

Also, keep in mind that the last thing your attorney or his/her staff want to do is spend hours going through and comparing your list and your spouse’s list of household goods to see what the two of you disagree on. Note to self: You are being billed between $150-$200 per hour for this kind of mind numbing legal work that you could be doing yourself.

What can you do about it? Make your own list of household goods. Make sure the list specifically identifies each object, the current fair market value (not what you paid for it but what you could get for it now if you had to sell it at a garage sale, on Craigslist, or through a private party), and who should be awarded each specific item. If you or your spouse had an item prior to the marriage or it was a gift to only one of you during the marriage then note that on your list.  If it was a gift during the marriage note who gifted you or your spouse each specific item.

 Then, provide the list to your spouse and attempt to work with your spouse on the division of those household items so that neither your attorney nor the judge has to be involved in the division of household goods. If you still can’t agree you can then provide this list to your attorney. You have just saved yourself some attorney fees because neither your attorney nor his/her staff spent time typing up a list of household goods that you provided. You just freed up your attorney and his/her staff time to spend on the more important issues of your case which may be fighting for custody of your children or researching the details of that retirement plan that you are entitled to half of.