Why personal property is hard to split
Household items, keepsakes, furniture, jewelry, artwork, tools, photos, and collections can all carry different emotional value for different people. A fair process needs to make room for those preferences without forcing every family member to argue item by item.
A better process starts with one shared inventory
Before anyone claims items, create a complete enough inventory of the belongings being divided. Photos, names, optional rooms, and optional estimated values help everyone understand what is included.
Private scoring reduces pressure
Public negotiation can reward the loudest voice. Private scoring gives each person the same point budget and lets them show which items matter most to them without performing those preferences in front of the group.
Use math to create one proposed distribution
Estate Divvy uses the submitted preferences to create a proposed allocation of items. The goal is to give the family a clear, structured starting point that reflects what people said they wanted while keeping individual scores private.
The final calculation is based on maximum Nash welfare, often shortened to MNW. Instead of simply giving each item to the person who scored it highest, MNW looks at each person's overall bundle and tries to avoid outcomes where one person receives most of what they value while someone else receives very little.
For indivisible goods like keepsakes, furniture, tools, jewelry, artwork, and household items, maximum Nash welfare is known for strong fairness properties. One important property is called envy-free up to one good, or EF1: a participant should not envy another participant's bundle after removing a single item from the other participant's bundle.
This kind of calculation can take longer as the estate grows, so Estate Divvy runs final results in the background and notifies participants when they are ready. You can read a plain-language explanation on our How fair division works page, or see the technical paper The Unreasonable Fairness of Maximum Nash Welfare.
Keep legal and financial questions separate
Estate Divvy is for organizing and dividing physical personal property. Families should still follow the will, trust, probate requirements, executor instructions, and any legal or tax guidance that applies to the estate.