Who gets your child’s furniture and belongings in a divorce?

Getting a divorce often requires you to divide up your assets and decide who will receive items like furniture or household belongings. When you have a child, this creates a unique situation for you, because their belongings may technically be yours while also belonging to them.

In divorce cases with children, it’s always important to make sure that your child has their toys, bedroom furniture and other belongings, so that they can be comfortable no matter where they live. However, it may not be simple to determine who keeps those items in their home.

Dividing your child’s items during a divorce

There are a few reasons that it may be difficult to decide how to divide your child’s items in a divorce. One may be that you or the other parent earns less than the other, so it would be harder to purchase new items. The argument, in that case, might be that your child’s items should all go to the lesser-earning parent’s home so that your child has everything they need there. That would put a burden on the higher-earning parent to replace at least a portion of those items, and doing so can be expensive.

Splitting up your child’s belongings doesn’t always make sense, though. If they have a bedroom set, it may match and all go together. Similarly, certain toys might be used more often than others, or clothing items might go together. Taking these items between homes may not be simple.

So, what should you do? It may help to divide items by category rather than thinking of dividing the items equally in general. For example, if you will keep your child’s bedroom set, the other parent may ask that all of your child’s current toys come to their home. You may request clothing items stay with you and opt to have your child travel back and forth with toys and clothing as needed.

In other cases, parents keep all of their child’s current items in one home and share in the cost of replacing items, like furniture, in the other home. What you do will depend on your financial situation and the property division settlement you come up with.