New York Divorce Law...

New York Law - As of What Date are Assets Valued?

Assets are generally valued as of the trial date.

The courts may use another date, especially if some significant event occurred between the date of filing and the commencement of the action.

Another perspective is to tend to value active assets, like businesses, at the date the action commenced, because increases in value after that are due to the separate efforts of the party now running the business.

Similarly, the court could value a passive asset, like stock in a public company or real estate, as of the trial date. The reasoning would be that the parties' efforts did not change the value in the meantime.

Section 236.B.4.b.

Cases:

McSparron (1995) 639 NYS2d 265 (It was not appropriate to value the husband's license to practice law as of the earlier date, that is the commencement of the action, where the wife, after the commencement, reduced the value of the practice by her actions. In this case, she called a press conference and claimed that her husband, a lawyer in the New York attorney general's office, was guilty of criminal conduct. The husband was fired and had not found employment as of the date of trial.)

Antoian (1995) 626 NYS2d 535 (wife's IRA was her separate property because she acquired the funds in the account after the commencement of the divorce).

Annis (1993) 592 NYS2d 786 (A stock portfolio should generally be valued as of the date of commencement of divorce action, as was done here.).

Kalisch (1992) 585 NYS2d 476 (The assets were valued on the date the action commenced, that is, when the divorce was filed.)

Smerling (1991) 576 NYS2d 271 (court used date of sale as valuation date, when sale happened during divorce and appreciation after filing but before sale was due to market factors, not effort of parties).

Patelunas (1988) 527 NYS2d 325 (valuation date was date of trial, when six years had passed from filing of action, and value of 2-family house had risen nearly six times).

Marcus (1988) 525 NYS2d 238 (valuation date was trial date, when three years had passed from filing of action).

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