When a betrothal is broken off, determining who gets the engagement ring can be very nasty business. There are several cases that have set precedence in this matter after first determining if an engagement ring is in fact a legal and binding contract to both parties involved in the engagement. The biggest factors in determining who gets the ring back goes back to who decided to end the engagement and whether or not the law sees the engagement ring as a legal contract or a gift.

If the engagement ring is considered by the court to be a contract, then the person that ended the engagement will have to forfeit the engagement ring, in most cases. Other factors that are considered is whether or not the person who ended the engagement had justifiable cause in doing so, as this can have some basis on who will get the ring. Determining exactly what legal bearing an engagement ring has, though, goes a long way in determining how a ruling will be enacted on a broken engagement.

If the engagement ring is considered to be a gift, then it needs to be determined whether or not the engagement ring is a conditional or unconditional gift. This determination will greatly affect who gets the ring. Most courts take the unconditional route if they decide that the ring is to be considered a gift. On the basis of an unconditional gift, regardless of who calls off the engagement, the woman gets to keep the ring. The only way that this can be reversed is if the man finds out or can prove that the woman had no intention of ever following through with the wedding and entered into the engagement fraudulently.

A conditional gift determination can result in three different judgment variations: no-fault, modified fault and strict fault. A no-fault judgment will return the ring to the man regardless of who called off the engagement. A modified judgment will return the ring to the man, unless he is the one that called of the engagement whether or not there was justification. A strict fault judgment will allow the person who did not break off the engagement to keep the ring once the reason for the broken engagement has been found and decided to be justifiable or not.

The laws and regulations of who gets to keep engagement rings vary greatly from court to court and the ring itself first needs to be determined as a contract or a gift. The rules that apply to contracts make the engagement a binding and legal contract even though no paperwork or signatures were involved. But when the ring is to be considered as a gift, determining who is at fault can result in long and heated battles.