Three things are decided for the appraiser by the law of the forum, and only one of them is usually written down: which definition of value governs, which date the business is valued on, and what counts as marital property in the first place.
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Matrimonial is the least settled of these three proceedings, and the reason is structural rather than intellectual: the framework is supplied by fifty separate bodies of state law, and in many states it is supplied asset by asset rather than once. Virginia proves the whole thesis inside one code. Its corporate statute defines fair value exhaustively at §13.1-729; its equitable distribution statute, §20-107.3, names no standard of value at all, sets the valuation date at the evidentiary hearing on the evaluation issue, and values debts as of the last separation. One state, one company, two proceedings, two dates, and a defined standard in one statute against silence in the other. Where the legislature has spoken, as Florida did in 2024, the answer changes again.
Six variables that are fixed by state law rather than by valuation judgment — each cited to the jurisdiction it comes from, checked September 2026.
Some legislatures name it, some courts supply it, and some statutes simply omit it. Virginia’s §20-107.3 names none. Florida legislated one effective 1 July 2024: under Fla. Stat. §61.075(6)(a)1.f. the standard of value for the marital interests in a closely held business is fair market value, which the statute then defines for itself.
The date that decides whether an asset is in the marital estate is often not the date that decides what it is worth. Florida legislates both in consecutive sentences: classification runs to the earliest of a valid separation agreement, a date that agreement sets, or the filing of the petition, while value is fixed as of ‘the date or dates as the judge determines is just and equitable under the circumstances’ (Fla. Stat. §61.075(7)).
California requires valuation ‘as near as practicable to the time of trial’, and permits an alternative date only on 30 days’ notice by the moving party and good cause shown, only between separation and trial, and only to accomplish an equal division equitably (Cal. Fam. Code §2552). New York directs the court to set the date early, anywhere ‘from the date of commencement of the action to the date of trial’ (DRL §236(B)(4)(b)). Texas fixes no valuation date by statute; §7.001 requires only a division ‘in a manner that the court deems just and right’.
Florida provides expressly that ‘different assets may be valued as of different dates, as, in the judge’s discretion, the circumstances require’ (§61.075(7)). An appraiser who assumes one date across an estate is assuming something the statute does not.
Whether personal goodwill is marital property is a question about the estate, not a valuation technique, and the valuation follows the answer. California treats the goodwill of a professional practice as community property (Golden v. Golden, 270 Cal. App. 2d 401, 405 (1969); In re Marriage of Foster, 42 Cal. App. 3d 577 (1974)), limited by the requirement that goodwill attach to a business rather than to a person alone (In re Marriage of McTiernan & Dubrow, 133 Cal. App. 4th 1090 (2005)). Texas holds personal goodwill is not property in the marital estate at all (Nail v. Nail, 486 S.W.2d 761, 764 (Tex. 1972)), while goodwill existing independently of the professional is divisible (Geesbreght v. Geesbreght, 570 S.W.2d 427 (Tex. Civ. App.—Fort Worth 1978); Finn v. Finn, 658 S.W.2d 735 (Tex. App.—Dallas 1983)). Where the interest predates the marriage, active against passive appreciation is a further characterisation question decided the same way.
New Jersey’s Appellate Division held in Brown v. Brown, 348 N.J. Super. 466, 792 A.2d 463 (App. Div.), certif. denied, 174 N.J. 193 (2002), that neither a marketability nor a minority discount applies to a spouse’s interest in a closely held corporation absent extraordinary circumstances, reasoning that where the shareholder spouse keeps the shares and no sale is triggered, liquidity is beside the point. Massachusetts reached a compatible result in Bernier v. Bernier, 449 Mass. 774 (2007), vacating key-man and marketability discounts ‘that assume the possible sale of the asset’ and instructing that the parties be treated ‘not as arm’s-length hypothetical buyers and sellers in a theoretical open market, but as fiduciaries entitled to equitable distribution of their marital assets’.
What the forum’s answers do to the engagement.
All five are answered by the forum’s law, and the answers do not travel across state lines.
It is a characterisation question about what constitutes marital property, and the valuation follows the answer. Florida legislated the framework effective 1 July 2024: fair market value is the standard of value for a closely held business, and goodwill ‘separate and distinct from the continued presence and reputation of the owner spouse’ is enterprise goodwill and a marital asset (Fla. Stat. §61.075(6)(a)1.f.). The statute never uses the words ‘personal goodwill’: that exclusion is a negative implication of the enterprise definition, not an enacted sentence.
There is no national answer, and the honest version of the question is what the forum’s statute and appellate courts have said. Virginia’s equitable distribution statute, §20-107.3, names no standard at all, while the corporate statute in the same code defines fair value exhaustively at §13.1-729 — one state, showing that the law sometimes chooses explicitly and sometimes leaves a gap that becomes the litigable issue. Florida chose explicitly and recently, setting fair market value as the standard of value for the marital interests in a closely held business effective 1 July 2024 (Fla. Stat. §61.075(6)(a)1.f.). Published practitioner surveys put fair market value as the majority standard with a minority of states using investment value or fair value and several applying a mix, but those surveys are self-described generalisations and are not uniformly sourced. Verify the controlling authority in the forum state.
In New Jersey they did, by an act of judicial importation, and the case is narrower than it is usually cited for. Brown v. Brown reached its result by taking the fair-value concept from New Jersey’s dissenting-shareholder and oppression cases and finding ‘no reason for a different approach in equitable distribution’, holding that neither discount applies absent extraordinary circumstances. But the same opinion valued the marital residence at stipulated fair market value, and its footnote 11 expressly reserved the case where the spouses are the only shareholders; New Jersey practitioners have since described the state’s standard of value as unresolved. Massachusetts vacated key-man and marketability discounts in Bernier where the husband testified he would retain the business, and quoted Brown’s ‘absent extraordinary circumstances’ formulation. A minority discount was not at issue in Bernier.
On the date the forum fixes, which in many states is left to the trial judge — so the same business can carry two defensible values depending on where the petition was filed. California sets a default and a narrow escape hatch: valuation ‘as near as practicable to the time of trial’, with an alternative date available only on 30 days’ notice by the moving party, for good cause, between separation and trial, and only to accomplish an equal division equitably (Fam. Code §2552). Florida splits classification from valuation in a single subsection and permits different assets to be valued as of different dates (§61.075(7)). New York directs the court to set the date as soon as practicable, anywhere from commencement to trial (DRL §236(B)(4)(b)). Texas fixes none by statute (Fam. Code §7.001).
It is a genuine split rather than a settled error, which is why it is worth pleading rather than assuming. New Jersey’s Supreme Court held in Steneken v. Steneken, 183 N.J. 290, 873 A.2d 501 (2005), that valuing a closely held corporation on a normalized salary while setting alimony on the actual salary is not double counting, because valuation and alimony are ‘separate, distinct, and not entirely compatible financial exercises’. Massachusetts declines to find inequitable double dipping where separate portions of an asset can be identified as the separate bases of the property assignment and of support (Dalessio v. Dalessio, 409 Mass. 821, 828 (1991); applied in Adams v. Adams, 459 Mass. 361, 399 (2011)). Illinois reaches a similar destination differently, excluding personal goodwill from a professional practice whether or not maintenance is awarded (In re Marriage of Schneider, 214 Ill. 2d 152, 166-67 (2005); In re Marriage of Talty, 166 Ill. 2d 232 (1995)).
Describe the state, the entity and where the case sits on the calendar. The Institute will help you see what the statute fixes, what it leaves open, and which question comes first.