What Owners Can and Cannot Keep When the Company Assigns

The line between the company’s property and yours feels obvious until the end — then every laptop, vehicle, account, and side project gets sorted by law rather than habit. Sort them before the assignee does.

What the Law Says

The assignment takes the entity’s assets: company-titled vehicles and equipment, company accounts, company-owned IP, and company opportunities. Owners keep their genuinely personal property, separately owned assets, and post-assignment labor — while gray-zone items moved from company to personal in the final months are exactly what avoidance review targets.

How to Navigate It, Step by Step

1. Title-check everything ambiguous now: vehicles, equipment, devices, accounts — ownership follows paper, not usage.
2. Unwind honestly: personal items in the office leave with documentation; company items at home come back.
3. Price the gray zones with counsel: the side project built on company time and tools has an ownership answer you want settled pre-assignment.
4. Never re-title on the eve: last-month transfers to spouses and LLCs are found and unwound with interest.
5. Build the after cleanly: new entity, new capital, and assets acquired through the process — the fresh start that survives scrutiny.

Common Questions

The truck is in the company’s name but I have driven it for years as mine. Keep it?

Buy it — through the assignee’s process at documented value; keeping it by silence is a conversion claim waiting to file.

Can I start a new company in the same industry next month?

Generally yes with a clean break — no diverted assets, no misappropriated opportunities in the transition, and the noncompete-free California landscape does the rest.