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Tennessee property division: high tech assets

| Jul 18, 2012 | Property Division

Property division is frequently the most difficult issue to resolve in Tennessee divorce cases. This is largely because disputes over marital property often involve contradictory appraisals or valuations as to the worth of particular assets. Unfortunately, property division has become even more complicated in recent years due to the ever-increasing accumulation of high tech goodies and even “virtual assets” by married couples and families.

This isn’t just about deciding who gets the iPad as opposed to the Xbox though. That wouldn’t be terribly difficult. Your iTunes library or streaming video collection? Cloud computing access? Expensive software products? Virtual assets earned or purchased for online games such as Farmville or even virtual game characters and avatars? Real life Facebook friends or Twitter followers?

These are not so easy but are important to consider nonetheless — if only because a fair and equitable division of your marital property cannot be achieved if some assets are left off the table.

If you and your spouse have led largely separate “digital lives” — questions about dividing those assets should be fairly easy to resolve. More often than not, however, couples share smart phone, computer and social media accounts and maybe even store all of their digital possessions in a single ethereal location — which, of course, frequently leads to disputes over who gets what or how much value to place on particular items.

For these reasons and more, Tennessee residents who are concerned about property division as it relates to computers, online accounts, digital collections and other types of high tech assets should speak to an experienced divorce lawyer about their legal rights sooner rather than later.

Source: Mobiledia, “Digital Divorce: ‘Til Tech Us Do Part,” Margaret Rock, July 16, 2012

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