Putting Market Values on Assets (not required)

What is MV (Monetary, or Market Value)?

The approximate real world value of an item if sold through an estate sale or auction, Craig’s List, yard sale, etc. The division process will result in each party receiving their share of the MV, or paying or receiving offsetting cash to balance differences. This value can be an educated guess, is sometimes just ignored by families if not significant, a third party estimate or ideally (if items of any significant value) an appraiser.  A value of $1 or greater needs to be used for awarded assets to appear on the Overview page. Note: Actual cash value to an estate is significantly less due to estate sales company, consignment or auction fees. We usually recommended discounting market values to .50 to determine fair cash values between family members if reconciling to balance.  Also, things are most often worth much, much less than people think.  Examples of this can be particularly shocking for antiques, high quality dark furniture, silver, china, art and collectibles.

What is EV (Emotional Value) exactly?

For some participants, items on the list to be divided hold emotional ties, or value; Dad’s old guitar, Mom’s silver brush, a watercolor from a class taken together. Some items, all may know and agree get pre-assigned to one party or another but others need a way to fairly assign. Our EV Bidding round makes it possible for all to have an equally fair chance at selecting those items through Emotional Bidding of their Emotional Values on items.

What if someone or several participants do not agree with the Market Value’s assigned to items?

For all to feel good about the division, all parties need to agree that the items listed and values are fair. Professional appraisals may be the only answer in some cases.  The initial round helps confirm not only the values, but saves time if no Divisee is interested in owning the asset. Agreeing on a value isn’t always possible with an initial listing proposed. An Administrator may choose to adjust a few values based on feedback, get an appraisal, show links to similar items on Craig’s List or eBay in support. One may also remove items where values are in dispute to be separately divided in a later round through a bidding process among the participants to establish a true “market value” for the participants. This allows the other items to be divided in faster ways, thereby not holding up the process.

Who pays for packing and shipping?

Administrators will typically set values for the items only. Each party who selects and is awarded an item is usually responsible for their own costs related to packing and shipping or collecting the assets from the estate location. Items not selected, which may then be sold or donated with any net proceeds divided, would also typically have costs for commission or packing and shipping, deducted from total proceeds before dividing the resulting cash among the parties.