Many of these hardships, however, can be avoided with a bit of planning and strategic foresight. Below are a few prudent steps and suggestions for couples going through a divorce to ensure an appropriate division and treatment of personal items. It is important to prepare a comprehensive list of all the personal items that you would like returned to you, and a good faith estimate of the value of those items. Doing this as early as possible can help ensure that your personal property is appropriately addressed during the course of the divorce proceedings and divided in an incomplete manner at the last minute when it is difficult for parties to recall what property is in the marital home.
Once you have the list ready, you should have it delivered to your spouse or your spouse's attorney before you go to court or mediation. These lists can often be used as a basis for an agreement between the parties during mediation or a court-ordered settlement agreement.
If the list of personal property is reasonable and amenable to both parties, the property may simply be 'handed over' or divided voluntarily. If this is the case, and the court has not entered any temporary orders or restraining orders prohibiting it, a spouse is entitled to return to the marital residence to collect agreed-upon personal items and 'low value' separate property.
Even in the most amenable of dissolutions, and even if all of these guidelines are followed, one spouse may feel unconformable permitting their former spouse unsupervised access to the marital home. These situations will generally require the parties to seek out a neutral third party who can be granted limited access to the marital property in order to retrieve the agreed-upon items.
If the parties themselves cannot independently agree to a distribution of personal property, then a mediator or a court order may divide the personal property for them. If either spouse does not comply with a court order allowing the retrieval of personal assets, he or she may face contempt of court proceedings.
