Business Valuation in Divorce — Which Share Is Divided and How
In a divorce, a business asset is often the most contested subject: a share in an LLC, shares in a joint stock company or productive property is at once the instrument of one spouse's activity and the accumulation of the family. The Civil Code answers this question through the general norms of the spouses' property regime: what enters the common property, what remains individual, when division may be sought and how an excess share is compensated. Business valuation happens precisely within this framework — and below we see which elements are decisive.
The technical methods of valuation — market, income or asset approaches — are not elaborated in these norms of the law; they belong to valuation practice. The legal question begins elsewhere: whether the particular asset is common or individual property, and how its value is counted in the division.
What Enters the Spouses' Common Property
Property acquired by the spouses during the marriage constitutes their common property — co-ownership — unless otherwise established by a marriage contract between them. At the same time, the right of co-ownership of such property arises even if one of them was engaged in household activity, raised the children or, for another respectable cause, had no independent income. In the business context this means: if a company was acquired or built during the marriage with common resources, it is common property — regardless of the fact that only one spouse appears in the charter or registration entries.
What Remains Individual Property
The individual property of each spouse comprises, on the one hand, property that belonged to them before the marriage and, on the other, property received during the marriage by inheritance or as a gift. The distinction is practical: a pre-marital business share is not subject to division, and shares received during the marriage by inheritance or gift likewise remain individual. Proving this rests on a documentary chronology — the precise fixation of the moments of acquisition, registration and transfer.