What To Do With Your House In A Divorce????

No-one when they get married is planning for their divorce.  Unfortunately,  many marriages find themselves in this very situation and most people are not prepared to deal with all the complications that come along with it.  If you and your soon to be ex-spouse own a home, it could either be your largest asset or your greatest liability.  In either case it is a major obstacle that needs to be addressed.  So what are your options?  Well there are plenty, and some just might surprise you!

Working With Your Soon To Be Ex-spouse:

Lets first assume that you are interested in keeping the house.  You would have to negotiate some sort of buyout from your soon to be ex.  There could be several ways that you could do that.  One would be to refinance the house in your name only and pay them their half of the equity in the house.  Another way could be to negotiate material items in place of cash such as a vehicle or maybe you have other real estate assets that  you can leverage.  This should be negotiated through your lawyers and your ex would have to sign a quitclaim deed.  A quitclaim deed is used to transfer interest in real property.  
​What if your ex does not want to sell to you?  Well,  you could co-own the property.  This tends not to be peoples first choice but it has become increasingly popular, especially for couples with children.  The children remain in the house while the parents move between the home and some other residence.  In some other instances the ex-spouses remain in the house together for financial reasons and just live separate lives.  As you can see this could lead to some awkward if not undesirable situations.

Cost Of Ownership:

Some other things to consider if you do decide to keep the house are the expenses.  The monthly expenses and the maintenance of a house can be very costly and time consuming. As you know,  it costs more than just the mortgage and more than likely you will have less of your spouse's income to pay for it.  If not escrowed,  you will need to set money aside every month to cover the taxes and insurance.  Many communities have an HOA with monthly dues.  The cost of maintenance, fixing  appliances and other repairs always seem to occur at the most inconvenient times. There are also the electric, gas, and cable bills as well.  Lets not forget the amount of time in a week it takes just to keep up with the lawn and snow removal, other yard work, etc. as well as cleaning. 

What If  You Can't Afford To Sell? 

Do you owe more on the mortgage than the house could sell for?  There is always the option of renting out your home.  You could always rent a room or two out to a friend or acquaintance to help offset the expenses (I would suggest avoiding this but some do rent out to strangers).  If  you are looking to keep the house as an investment you could move out and rent the whole property to someone.  Just make sure that the rent you are receiving will cover your expenses.  The good thing about this is that you could make your tenants responsible for the maintenance and some repairs, as well as utility bills such as electric and gas bills.  

Options For Selling Your Home:

If you decide that you don't want to live or have to associate with your ex and have no desire to deal with the headaches of becoming a landlord, then selling your home would be a great avenue for you.  What you must consider first is can you sell it for more than you owe?  If you can't, don't panic.... there are options!  You could walk away and foreclose on the property.  This would hurt your credit and could take years to straighten this out. We have a great article to help avoid foreclosure! (Click here to read "What are my options when facing foreclosure") You could talk with the bank about selling your property as a short sale.  This is where the bank agrees to let you out of the mortgage by selling your home for less than what you owe on it.  This can be difficult to do as this is very time consuming.  Short sales can take a year or more to complete and any amount of money that the bank forgives is now considered income by the government and this money will be taxed.  We have been able to work with the banks and home owners to successfully purchase through the short sale option, with a most recent one was in Ballston Spa and have negotiated on homes in Queensbury  and Clifton Park as well.  
If selling your home is the best option for you,  you have two ways to go about it.  First you could list with a realtor.  For a fee of around 6% of the sales price for the home, they will list your property for sale and market it on the MLS to potential buyers. They should visit with you at your home and make suggestions for improvements to make the home more marketable.  Improvements could include cleaning out closets and storage areas, painting rooms, and making small repairs such as fixing dripping faucets, caulking showers, patchimg any small holes from hanging decorations,  and also removing family pictures and valuables. "Budget friendly tips for busy parents to stage your home and keep clutter away" has some great ideas for busy parents selling a home.  Be prepared to relocate when people schedule a time to view the property so you should have a plan for some place to go with the kids on short notice. (For some ideas check out this article "Quick trips from Albany")  
The other option would be to sell the home on your own.  We have purchased homes direct from the owners and has worked out well for all parties included.  The home owners were able to put more money in their pockets because we were able to save the 6% real estate commissions.  That is $6,000  per every hundred thousand dollars you sell for. For example, if your house sold for  $200,000,  the commission that you would could save is $12,000. That is a lot of money!  As well we buy homes "As Is".  You would not need to make any improvements or repairs which would also save you money, or bother with keeping the house in tip top shape and finding someplace to go during showings.  We are also able to close on your time-frame. 

We hope that you find this article helpful should you have to go through the unfortunate experience of a separation or divorce.  For additional information or if you have any questions,  we would be more than happy to talk to and try to help you. Please be sure to  visit our homepage at:  www.chrisandginabuyhouses.com.  

​