Who Gets the Engagement Ring After a Breakup in Virginia?

 

This guest post is from Allison Allgood, current Regent Family Law student:

Sometimes relationships break down and broken engagements can mean hurt feelings and broken hearts. But, a broken engagement does not have to mean loss of property. In Virginia, the person who gives an engagement ring may recover that property from the gift receiver if an engagement is terminated. The Virginia Supreme Court has held that upon the breach of an engagement to be married, gifts made in contemplation of marriage may be recovered because of their conditional nature. Pretlow v. Pretlow, 177 Va. 524 (1941); McGrath v. Dockendorf, 292 Va. 834 (2016). A conditional gift is one given in anticipation of some future event or action taking place. In this case, someone gives an engagement ring to another expecting to marry that person; if the engagement falls through, the gift giver may recover the ring. Despite the Virginia “heart balm” statute, which bars civil actions for breach of a promise to marry, the abolition of civil actions for alienation of affection and criminal conversation (adultery) and seduction, conditional gifts given upon the promise of marriage may be regained by the gifter. Va. Code § 8.01-220.

To succeed in getting an engagement ring gift back in Virginia, the plaintiff must have a property right in the item and have the right to its immediate possession. In addition, the item must be capable of identification and the property must be of some value. Lastly, an ex-partner, the defendant in this action, must have had possession of the property at some time before the action was brought. Peter v. Langley, 89 Va. Cir. 281 (2014). Remember, if the engagement ends before the marriage occurs, the ring giver can recover the property, regardless of who was at fault for the relationship ending.

The law in Virginia says that although a ring giver may choose to allow the receiver to keep the engagement ring, in Virginia, he or she is not required to. Social consideration and moral fault may supplement legal considerations in any given situation, however. This means that even though a man may demand the return of his engagement ring gift to his fiancée according to Virginia law, perhaps if he is the reason why the relationship ended, he should let his ex-partner keep it! In addition, the Bible holds highly the sanctity of marriage and condemns cheating on one’s spouse as a sin. Perhaps as Christians, allowing a soon-to-would-have-been spouse to keep his or her engagement ring if the gifter partner engages in sexual sin appears to be the morally just thing to do.