Legally who keeps the engagement ring after divorce?

[pinkypig]

Husband won't return the rings I threw at him after he revealed his 16 month affair

Well if you threw them at him and said take them back I guess he's just taken you at your word!

They're gifts so they should be with you.

But if he won't give them back then make the full value of them part of the settlement - so you then get a larger share of the assets.

Legally they are gifts and belong to you.

Hang on if you give a gift back then it is a second gift - she chose to give them to him.

On divorce though whowever owns the asstes rings, houses, savings, shares they are added up and then divided in the % the court or the parties agree so if the rings are worth £2000 and the equity in the house £20k then the assets are £22k and if you go to 50/50 each then you would get £11k. That is how it is worked out.

No, assets exclude gifts.

Her throwing them in his direction doesn't mean she was gifting them back - she could easily just have thrown them on the floor in her own house

Assets do contain gifts. Every time a wife or husband who already owns a house puts it into joint names on marriage they are making a gift to the other half. If husband buys wife a second property to say sorry for his affair it's a gift but all of these gifts including your underwear, rings, his car and the like all go into the pot to be divided. In some cultures such as Indian in the UK a wife's jewellery is a huge part of the joint marital assets and to leave these gifts out might mean to leave out some of the key assets needed to house and feed children.

Well, I would have said they were yours, but you threw them at him (understandably) so he could argue that you gave them back to him.

If you are divorcing, then everything will get split anyway, so you can always ask the court for them if it is the rings themselves that you want, rather than the value of them.

I am not a solicitor. I don't have any professional understanding of the law. It's just a layman's basic thoughts. If I am talking out of my arse, I rely on my fellow mners to throw bog roll at me.