Dividing the contents and moving out

Who keeps what is for the case

I don't decide who owns the couch, the tools in the garage or grandma's china, and I won't offer a view. That's settled between the two of you, your attorneys or mediator, and if it comes to it, the court. Ask me and I'll send you back to them.

What I can do is help you get the timing right, so the sale and the move-out don't trip over each other. One legal point is worth knowing first, though. Once papers are served, ORS 107.093 restrains both spouses from transferring, concealing or disposing of property the other has an interest in without written consent or a court order, and that covers more than the house. Ask your attorney before anything leaves.

Make an inventory

Walk the house room by room and list what's there. Furniture, appliances that aren't built in, tools, outdoor equipment, anything in the attic or the shed. It doesn't need to be fancy. A shared spreadsheet with a column for the room and a column for the item is enough.

Put it in the shared folder, where both of you can see it and your attorneys can work from it. Leave the "who gets it" column for them.

If walking the house together isn't workable, one of you can make the first pass and the other can add to it afterward, marking anything missed in a different color, so the finished list reflects what both of you saw and neither of you has to take the other's word for it.

Photograph before anything moves

Before a single box leaves, take photos of every room from the doorway, then the closets, the garage and the outbuildings. Your phone records the date. Add the photos to the shared folder so you both have the same set.

Open drawers and cupboards for a few of the shots if anything inside matters, and get the serial numbers of big items like the refrigerator or a generator while you're at it. It takes an hour, maybe two in a house with a full garage and a shop.

These photos do two jobs. They're a record of what was in the house on that date, which your attorneys may find useful when they work through the contents, and they're a record of the house's own condition before the moving trucks scuff the walls and nick the doorframes.

Time it around the listing photos

The listing photos are the first showing. They need the house finished: either still furnished and decluttered, or emptied, cleaned and staged. A house halfway through a move photographs badly.

So pick an order before the photographer's date and write it down. One option is to move out first, then repair, clean and stage, then photograph. Another is to declutter now, photograph and show the house furnished, and move after an offer is accepted. Each works. What doesn't work is a moving truck in the driveway during a showing, or a buyer walking through rooms that are half packed and full of boxes with someone's name on them.

The in-between months

Sometimes the contents can't be divided before the house sells. The case isn't finished, or one of you doesn't have a place yet, or there's simply nowhere to put a piano. That's a normal problem.

A storage unit can hold the disputed or undecided things while the house is listed, so the rooms look finished for buyers and nothing gets divided in a hurry. Agree in writing whose name the unit is in, who holds the keys, who pays the monthly bill and whether either of you can go in alone. Put the unit's inventory in the shared folder alongside the house inventory.

Whatever goes into storage, photograph it on the way in. Your attorneys can sort out who gets it later, from the same list and the same pictures.

Separate moving days

Moving day is hard enough without the other person in the next room, watching what goes into each box and keeping a mental tally of every lamp and every rug. Schedule a separate day for each of you, in writing, with times. Keep them apart. If one of you still lives there, the other's moving day is on a date that person has agreed to.

A friend, a relative or a hired mover who isn't part of the divorce can be a good buffer. Count the keys and garage remotes, and put the count in the folder.

Before you remove anything attached to the house, like a mounted television, a light fixture or a shed, check with me. Once you have a buyer, the sale agreement says what stays with the house.

What's left at the end

There's always a last layer: the paint cans, the garage shelves, the box nobody claims. Decide now who handles it, whether it's donated, hauled away or sold, and who pays for a haul if you need one, because a garage full of unclaimed odds and ends at the final walk-through is a problem for both of you. Settle it before closing week.

The buyer will expect the house as the sale agreement describes it, usually empty and clean, at the final walk-through. Leave yourselves a margin of a few days before closing, so the last trip isn't a scramble the night before the keys change hands.

Do one last walk-through of your own before the buyer's. Open every cupboard, check the attic and the crawl space, and look behind the shed. Then hand me the keys.