Many Kentuckians own one or more boats for recreation. As with other property, those who own boats may have to figure out how to divide them should they divorce their spouses.
Like other states, Kentucky does not necessarily count all a couple’s property as marital property. For example, a person who owned their boat prior to marriage may be able to claim it as separate property, and therefore not subject to marital property division.
That said, when courts are deciding how to divide property during a divorce, they do more than just look at who originally bought the item. Sometimes, an asset can be commingled during a long marriage, meaning that the other spouse acquires a property interest in that asset over time. For instance, the boat owner may have used a joint bank account with their spouse to pay for repairs and maintenance to the boat. In this case, the other spouse could argue that they should be compensated for what they contributed to the value of the boat.
This doesn’t necessarily mean the spouses will divide the value of the boat 50/50 between them. They may negotiate a different percentage.
This principle can apply to many types of property, including homes, retirement accounts and ownership stakes in a business. Some of these assets can be very complicated to divide in a divorce. By comparison, dividing a boat is much more straightforward, but it isn’t always easy.
How a divorce court will handle a boat depends on the circumstances
The first step is to figure out how much the boat is worth. The value of a used boat depends on what comparable boats would fetch on the open market. For instance, if five similarly-sized boats in similar condition were sold in Kentucky over the previous 12 months, the spouses might take the average selling price of those boats and agree that this should be considered the value of the boat in their case.
In this sense, valuing boats is like valuing most cars or houses, as there is some basis for comparison. On the other hand, yachts or other larger, customized boats may require some special expertise to evaluate.
Even the value of boats that are more widely available can also fluctuate based on variables like upgrades, maintenance record and usage.
Once the couple agrees on or the court establishes a value for the boat, the couple will then have to figure out how to divide it.
Usually, it makes more sense for one of the spouses to keep the boat rather than try to share it.
Who actually keeps the boat after the divorce will depend on many circumstances, including, for example, who is in the best position to afford its upkeep and who, historically, has used it more often. The spouse who does not keep the boat may keep other property or be entitled to a buyout of their share of the boat’s value.
