So, you have decided that divorce is the only viable option left to you and your spouse. Hopefully you don’t have any children to drag through the rubble of your relationship ending. Now you are starting to divide up the property, and if there is a house involved that makes it that much more tangled.
Because, no matter whose name is on the deed, or mortgage….most states split marital assets 50/50. That means that you have many options with a house when you divorce. The first option is to sell the house. Why sell? Because any equity you might have in the house is an asset that has to be dealt with. So if you bought your house at $100,000 and the pay off is $50,000 you have $50,000 in equity that needs to be split between you and your spouse.
Another option is that one of you keep the house, and pays the other their half of the equity. This is known as buying out your partners interest. Usually, and it is a good idea to do this, a stipulation put into the divorce decree is that the one who is keeping the house takes out a new mortgage thereby releasing the other from any indemnity.
When you have children, some divorced couples have kept the house and shared custody of the kids in the house. It sounds kind of likely, but if you and your partner can put your differences aside for the sake of your kids it can work.
Divorce sucks anyway you look at it. No one wins in the end. And division of property is just one of the sucky parts to it.
