Part of settling your divorce is dividing marital property. Whether you do this or the court handles the matter, you will need to ensure a fair division. To do this, you may need to find the value of certain assets.
Most often this occurs concerning your home. Valuing your home can happen in two ways. According to The Street, you may receive an assessed value or a market value. These are two different valuation methods that can impact your divorce settlement.
Different valuation processes
You should make sure you understand the valuation process. Assessed value will give you an amount that comes from comparing your home to similar homes. Market value is the sales price of your home. Ideally, you want to market value to get the best idea of the true worth of your home.
Impact
The impact of the valuation of your home or any other property can be huge. When the court divides assets, it looks for a fair division. This often requires looking at the value of assets and trying to do a fairly equal division. If you have a valuation of an asset that is far higher than the real value, it can skew the property division.
Furthermore, you can cheat yourself out of getting the assets you want if you take an asset with an inflated value. Many times, couples will try to trade assets of similar valuation. You cannot do this if you do not know the real price tag on an asset.
To be smart about property division, you need to begin with properly valuing each asset you own.