Selling a house during divorce: the three routes and what each costs
The house is usually the largest thing being divided and the slowest to move. Three ways it normally goes, what each one costs the pair of you, and where a cash sale genuinely helps.
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Three routes, and only three
Whatever the circumstances, the house ends up going one of three ways. Knowing which one you are in makes the rest of it a lot shorter.
One of you buys the other out
One keeps the house and refinances to pay the other their share. Clean when it works.
It needs: One income that qualifies for the whole mortgage on its own, which is the step this route usually fails at.
You sell and split the proceeds
The house is sold, the loan and the costs come off, and what is left is divided as agreed or as ordered.
It needs: Both signatures, and agreement on price and timing. This is where a written offer with the arithmetic on it does the most work.
You defer the sale
Neither moves yet. Common where children are in school, and usually written into the agreement with a date or a trigger.
It needs: A written answer to who pays the mortgage meanwhile, in the agreement rather than in an understanding.
Who is paying the mortgage while this is decided
This is the question that does the most financial damage when nobody answers it, and it is separate from who ends up with the house.
The loan does not know you are divorcing. If both names are on it, both credit files take the damage from a missed payment, including the one who has already moved out and is paying rent somewhere else. A person who no longer lives in the house can still be foreclosed on for it.
So get it written down, in the temporary orders or the agreement, before it becomes a fact nobody decided. And if payments have already been missed, the foreclosure guide is the more urgent page.
General orientation, not legal or tax advice. How a decree affects title, and what a court can order about the house varies by state and by case, so ask somebody licensed where the property is before you act on any of it.
We work with both of you, identically
We are a buyer, not anybody's advocate. In practice that means one number, put in writing, sent to both of you and to both attorneys at the same time, with the arithmetic shown.
No separate conversations, no different figure depending on who rang first, and no comment on anything that is not the house. If one of you would rather we deal only with the attorneys, that is fine and quite common.
Both owners sign to sell. One of you cannot sell it alone, and any buyer telling you otherwise is describing a deal that will not close.
What a sale looks like when it is part of a settlement
The title company requests the payoff figure. That comes off first, then the liens and the costs, and what remains is divided the way your agreement or the order says. We pay the closing costs and there is no commission, which means more of the equity survives to be split.
We can also work to a date rather than to our own convenience. If the agreement says the house must be sold by a particular day, say so on the first call and we will tell you straight away whether that is comfortable or tight.
You do not need to repair, stage or show the house, which matters more here than in most situations: showings need a tidy house and somebody to leave it, and that is a difficult thing to arrange between two people who are separating.
Selling during a divorce: common questions
Can one of us sell without the other?
No. If you are both on the deed, you both sign. A buyer who tells you otherwise is describing a contract that will fail at the title company.
What one of you can do alone is get an offer in writing. That is often the thing that unsticks the conversation, because it replaces two guesses with one number.
Do you take sides?
No, and it is not a nicety. One offer, in writing, to both of you and both attorneys at once, with the arithmetic shown so neither of you has to take the other's word for what it says.
The court has given us a deadline.
Tell us the date on the first call. We close on your date rather than ours, and where the date is tight the honest answer comes the same day rather than three weeks in.
One of us wants to keep the house.
Then the question is whether that person qualifies for the mortgage alone, and their lender answers that, not us.
Our offer is still worth having, because a buyout needs a number everybody accepts and a written offer is a far better basis for one than an opinion.
What if we are behind on payments?
Then read the foreclosure guide first. A sale date set by a lender does not wait for a divorce to conclude, and that clock is the more urgent of the two.
Who pays the closing costs?
We do, and there is no commission. What we offer is what arrives to be divided, which is one less thing for the two of you to work out.
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Put the address in. We come back within a day with a number and the three figures behind it, and then it is yours to do what you like with. Take it to an agent and ask them to beat it if you want.
Takes about a minute. No fee, and nothing to sign to see the number.
Get a fair cash offer on your house
Put the address in and we will come back within a day with a number and the workings. Then it is yours to do what you like with. Take it to an agent and ask them to beat it, sit on it for a month, or ignore it entirely.
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You are never under any obligation to accept our offer, and we do not pressure anyone. We just want you to do what is best for you, whether you sell to us, sell it to somebody else, or do not sell at all.