Who keeps the engagement ring after a breakup? 2 law professors explain why you might want a pre-nup for your diamond

Regardless of where you live, if you’re legally obligated to return an engagement ring and fail to do so, you may be on the hook for monetary damages. This can lead to financial hardship when rings are lost, stolen or intentionally thrown away.

If one person keeps the ring after a breakup, there may be gift tax consequences for the person who bought the ring. But that’s only if the ring costs more than $17,000, and there are a lot of variables and loopholes that can reduce the chances that a jilted ex would ever owe any money to the Internal Revenue Service.

Anyone can make gifts worth up to $17,000 per year, as of 2023, to anyone else without incurring consequences. Gifts worth more than that threshold are officially subject to a gift tax, and the IRS requires that taxpayers report the amount of those gifts annually.

As of 2023, taxpayers also may give away gifts totaling $12.92 million during their whole lifetimes, or after death in their wills, with no tax-related consequences.

But gifts of $17,000 or more will eat into that credit.

Anyone who gets engaged can insure a ring.

And while no readers should see this article as a source of personal legal advice, we do note that engaged couples can set their own rules. Courts will generally enforce written agreements reached between two people who plan on getting married that stipulate who gets the ring after a breakup.

Couples can draft or sign a ring-related contract, particularly if that piece of jewelry has great sentimental or monetary value.

We understand that such paperwork might not materialize during a time of bended knees and joyful celebration. We also get that what people do with their rings when an engagement is called off isn’t just a matter of what the law requires.

Perhaps not surprisingly, we have found relatively few cases in which someone sued an ex over this issue.

Not even Ben Affleck did that. Had he tried to sue J. Lo in 2004 in a California court, he might have won. But his success would have turned on how the engagement ended.

Besides, as you may have heard, the high-profile couple reunited in 2021 and married in 2022.

The second engagement ring Affleck gave Lopez is reportedly worth $5 million – probably double that of the first one. J. Lo gets to keep that huge, rare green diamond forever now that she’s saying her name is Mrs. Jennifer Lynne Affleck.

This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. If you found it interesting, you could subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.