Does The Day You Get Engaged Decide Who Gets To Keep The Ring After A Breakup?

Engagement rings are symbols of a couple’s loving commitment to each other. But when an engagement or marriage abruptly ends, an expensive ring is also suddenly a valuable asset ― and one both parties might want to keep. “Who gets to keep an engagement ring after a relationship is over?” is a question lawyers deal with all the time.

Lauren Crane, a New York-based lawyer at , said she has been the one who has “to bear the bad news” to both ring givers and ring receivers about who may get an unexpected windfall. “When the person is unwilling to give [the engagement ring] back, that’s when you run into the feistiness,” Crane said. But the answer as to who keeps the ring is not so easy.



It can depend on a variety of factors, like which state you live in, who bought the ring, whether the marriage ceremony happened ― and even, potentially, what day you proposed on. Where you reside ― and what statutes and case law precedents your state has ― can be the difference between you keeping or losing a pricey engagement ring. In at least one state, Montana, engagement rings are unconditional gifts where the recipient gets “to keep the ring regardless of why the engagement was called off,” explained Erin Levine, a California-based lawyer and founder of , an online divorce management platform.

But more states follow what is known as a “ ” approach, meaning that if the marriage doesn’t occur, the giver gets the ring back, regardless of who ended the engagement, because the condition of the gift ― marriage ― was not fulfilled. “However, even in these states there is often some room for a judge to consider other evidence,” Levine added. Who ended the engagement can also matter.

A few states follow what is known as a “fault-based” approach and find it unfair for the person who called off the wedding to keep an engagement ring, no matter if they were the ring giver or recipient. “In Alaska, courts typically award the ring to the party not responsible for ending the engagement,” explained Levine. “Similarly, Kentucky employs a fault-based approach, often requiring the recipient to return the ring if they broke off the engagement without justification.

” Being proposed to on a special occasion like Thanksgiving, your birthday, or Christmas can be magical timing. Your family may be in town to support you, the weather may provide the perfect romantic ambiance. But proposals on certain dates can also be helpful evidence of whether the ring was meant to be a no-strings-attached gift.

Levine said in California, for example, engagement rings are generally seen as conditional gifts in anticipation of marriage. “However, if the ring was given on a holiday or special occasion, a court might view it as an unconditional gift, allowing the recipient to retain it even if the engagement ends,” she said, noting that, “This interpretation stems from the perception that gifts exchanged during such times are intended as outright presents, not contingent on future events.“ That’s why if you want to hedge your bets, you may want to choose a proposal day that is not seen as a gifting holiday.

If the ring receiver can prove they got the gift for a reason other than contemplation of marriage, they might be able to keep it, Crane said. “If we were advising a potential client who was proposing, we would advise them to propose on a day other than a holiday [or] birthday,” Crane said. She advises clients in New York, another state where engagement rings are typically regarded as conditional gifts.

“Proposing on a holiday or birthday might seem romantic, but if things don’t work out, the proposer may not end up with the marriage they wanted — but at least they will be guaranteed to have the ring back,” Crane noted. But understand that if you do end up in a bitter legal battle over an engagement ring, a court will not just look at whether the date was a gift-giving occasion. “Courts consider various factors, including the specific circumstances of the gift and the applicable state laws,” Levine said.

If a ring giver already has a pattern of buying extravagant gifts on Christmas, for example, it “would be more persuasive that that ring should be kept by the receiver” because the person has shown a pattern of a certain type of gift-giving, she said. Even if you wear the ring, your engagement ring is ultimately not guaranteed to be yours to keep. A lot of courts see an engagement ring gift as a loan to the person who bought it for you ― one you must be ready to return if your wedding gets called off.

Take what happened in Massachusetts recently. A couple went to court over a $70,000 Tiffany engagement ring and seven years after the relationship ended, the state’s supreme court sided with the man who bought his fiancée a ring and wanted it back after the engagement failed and the wedding didn’t happen. In the November final decision, the court if “the planned nuptial does not come to pass, the engagement gift must be returned to the donor.

” In other words, because the marriage ceremony never took place, the engagement gift belonged to the person who bought it. But for ring recipients who do get married, congratulations ― there is often more legal justification that you should keep the ring because you fulfilled the condition of your gift. In this way, getting married can be good news for ring receivers wanting to keep their gift, even if their marriage later ends in divorce.

Under the logic of rings being conditional gifts, “Once you get married, that ring is the receiver’s ring, and the giver has no right to it,” Crane explained. In these cases, unless there is a prenuptial agreement stating otherwise, the ring is the receiver’s separate property, she said. In other words, you don’t have to split the value of this gift.

“If the ring is worth $10,000 and you get divorced, you usually get to keep that and you don’t have to give your spouse $5000,” Levine said as an example. Of course, you don’t have to resort to litigation to resolve this thorny issue. You can simply decide to share the price.

Levine shared examples of couples who sell the ring and split the proceeds using sites like . But if you’re reading this article and are wondering about your legal right to keep an engagement ring, know that there is no one-size-fits-all answer. As with most legal questions, your best bet is to consult with a lawyer about your particular situation and see if there’s an applicable statute for where you live.

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