Who Gets the Family Pet Upon a Divorce?
July 21, 2020
If you want to divorce and have a pet, you may be concerned about what will happen to the animal once you separate. State laws and the approach you take determine who gets to keep the pet.
The Legal Option
Current Florida laws consider pets as personal property. As such, the court will divide the pet just as other marital assets.
Florida uses equitable distribution laws, which categorizes property as either separate or marital property. Each person keeps their separate property, while the marital property undergoes equitable distribution between the two of you.
The Pet as Marital Property
Marital property includes everything you acquired after the marriage. The classification includes both the properties you acquired individually and those you acquired as a couple.
Therefore, if you bought a dog three years into your marriage, it will count as marital property. If your partner rescued a cat sometime during the marriage, the cat counts as marital property. The court will consider the dollar value of the pet and divide it equitably between the two of you.
Here are some of the factors that determine the division of marital property:
- Your respective incomes
- Marriage duration
- Loss of pension rights
- Your respective future finances
- Taxation
Consider a case where the court determines that your pet is marital property, and the pet is worth $1,000. If one of you gets 60% of the marital property, they will get $600 for the dog, and the other person gets $400. In practice, the judge will give the pet one person and award the other equivalent money or assets.
The Pet as Separate Property
Separate property is anything that each of you had before the marriage. For example, if you had a cat and your partner had a dog before the marriage, then each of you will walk away with their respective animal upon a divorce.
Note that separate property can become marital property if you commingle the two. Consider an example where you had a puppy before your marriage, but you used marital resources to feed, treat, and care for the dog. The judge is likely to treat that dog as marital property if you divorce.
A Possible Alternative
Although the law treats pets as property, courts have a little leeway in how they handle pet custody. Courts can consider the best interests of the pet and award sole or joint custody – or even visitation rights. However, judges don't have clear guidelines on such issues, and they are not obliged to take that route. Thus, you can't bank on the court to give your pet special treatment.
The Best Approach
Pet division can cost you a lot of time and money if you leave it up to the judge. The best approach is to negotiate and determine the pet's custody outside the courtroom. Below are a couple of approaches you can take with the negotiations.
Pet as a Bargaining Chip
If you don't have a strong emotional attachment to the pet, then use it as a bargaining chip to get what you want. For example, if you have a motorbike (classified as marital property) that you both want, you can ask your partner to keep the pet and let you have the motorbike.
Shared Custody
Work out a shared custody arrangement if both of you want to keep the pet. Keep the best interests of the pet in mind if you opt for shared custody. For example, shared custody of a dog works best if you live in the same neighborhood — the arrangement gets complicated if you move to different states.
As you can see, you will be better off if you handle the pet issue without the court's involvement. Budget Divorce Center has a long experience in helping couples deal with similar issues. Contact us
today, and we will help you settle your divorce issues without exhausting your marital resources.
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