I have to get my ex husbands name off my mortgage or else he will take me to court for being in contempt of our divorce agreement. My parents were loaning me the money to pay off the mortgage. But we had a terrible disagreement about how my mom treated my son. Now I am preparing the house to sell it. I will not be able to buy a house in my town and rentals are hard to come by, but I need to stay here for my son’s school. I also have nothing. No savings, no investments, no college money for my kids. Nothing. I am looking for a higher paying job. I bought my house for 622k and will sell it for 1.1 mil. My mortgage is 550k. I think selling it and investing the money is a good choice. But now my realtor has scared me that I won’t find anywhere to go. Please help.
Edit: I should have clarified, my parents helped buy him out when we divorced so that I could keep the house. So all the equity is mine. They have also been helping me make the mortgage payments. I want to stop having them help me, but I worry about moving.
Divorced and broke. Sell my house or keep it?
byu/Wild-Obligation-2093 inpersonalfinance
Posted by Wild-Obligation-2093
25 Comments
I mean it doesn’t sound like you have an option so I don’t see how you’d keep it at all
Why don’t you start looking for apartments to rent now so it is lined up for when you sell. You should start contributing to a Roth IRA right away and hopefully you will have a 401k at a new job that you can max out as well.
If your realtor can’t find a rental look online yourself or get a new realtor.
Can you rent a room in your home?
You have to sell or refinance given the fact that your divorce agreement specifies his name needs to be off.
So can you refinance? Probably not given what you say your financial situation is. Perhaps if your parents cosign, but that seems like a bad idea if you are feuding.
So you dont have a choice. Sell it. Unclear if you’d owe you ex any part of that money, but even half that chunk can be put into a bank and you can use that to help pay rent for a house in the area.
Look for a lawyer and a financial advisor.
Is the child from you both? If so, I don’t think he can get you out tbf. So you can come to an agreement on how you can pay him over time.
Usually court will favor the child, since he’s still in school moving out after their parents divorce is not ideal.
Of course this is not a permanent solution. But it will give you a few years to figure it out.
Maybe a reverse mortgage would keep you in the house but you’d be giving some of your equity to the bank.
But make sure it’s a reputable lender.
Mane talk to a different realtor. I would also talk to a financial advisor who is a woman who understands divorce
if you can’t do the basic math to see how much you would have left over after selling and paying off your mortgage, reddit can’t help you.
Selling the house sounds like your best option.
If the house sells for $1.1M and you owe $550K, it looks like you can pocket somewhere around $400K to $500K. You might get your realtor to confirm that but that’s not “nothing”.
Are you not able to find a smaller, cheaper house in the same school district?
500k goes quite far in the Midwest, something to consider.
Sell and half a mil is a good starting point. Depending on how old your kiddo is, just rent.
Depending housing costs in your location, you might be able rent out rooms to cover expenses. It also might be worth consulting a realtor and financial advisor. Either way, crunch the numbers (including costs of alternate housing if you sell) before making a decision.
What is the mortgage compared to where you would want to rent? If renting is cheaper, rent. If not, don’t sell until son is out of school.
You don’t have to sell. Talk to your lender and get a loan assumption for the
mortgage loan, and use a quitclaim deed to transfer his interest in the house to you.
Better to sell when it’s a choice than when something you can’t afford to fix fails. I’m a fan of owning a house but that entails taxes, insurance and repairs. Unless you have the free cash flow to cover insurance and taxes comfortably and enough savings or credit to handle a couple major repairs you’re set up to be in a worse place in a couple years.
If you can’t qualify for a loan on that house, you have no choice. Your son may have to switch schools. If he’s a junior or senior,you could perhaps get a waiver.
Sorry I should have clarified: I already bought him out of his share of the house, and I can’t refinance due to late payments made during the divorce, which was not amicable at all. My question is really whether it’s better to stay a homeowner with all the expense that domes with that, or cash out, find a rental, and actually have some savings and money to invest. My situation now makes it impossible to save or invest. But I’m also unsure about losing my homeowner status.
What were you going to do for money if you parents helped you pay off the mortgage?
You are probably going to need to make some big changes in your life. That might include changing schools, second job, only you will know what’s best. But you are going to have to make some big changes.
The cash you get from selling the house will help you make the transition.
The best thing to do is to sell your house and rent an apartment. Get your financial house in order. Homes are expensive and you could start going through your settlement money by paying taxes and making repairs. You can always purchase another house if your situation changes and you get a better job. It will also simplify your life while you figure out what to do.
It sounds to me like you have to provide your ex-husband half of the equity in the house to get him off the deed. Maybe I am mistaken in that assumption so consult your lawyer.
Assuming that is correct and the home is valued at 1.1 million and you have 50% equity in the home based on the mortgage value then you owe him half of that or 225k. If you sell the house then ignoring the various fees to sell you would have 225k in the bank after this. Is that all about right?
If so, you can go try and get a loan from the bank using the equity on the house. Suddenly you have another mortgage for 225k in addition to the current one, but you can pay your ex-husband off. I have no idea what that does to your payments though, and you may not be able to afford that, especially if you don’t have a good job and already have a history you can show a lender of getting child support payments.
Meanwhile, you can end up with a fair amount of money. Enough that even renting some place you could reasonably get by without working if you needed ti for at least a few years. That gives you time, time to get a job, time to get skills you need to move up in a career, time to get your life back on track. Its a lot of stress off of you instead of being house poor and stressing all the time about losing a job or something.
As a child of divorce, my mom fought super hard to keep our house and in the end, I don’t think it mattered much. Kids can be resilient, your son can go to a new school if needed, he will make new friends, you can get him to hang out with his current friends as needed. The important things are more what you do with your son during this time, that you are there for him in all the ways you can be. Roughly 200k is better than most people get in a divorce. You will be able to be there for him more if you aren’t stressed about being able to pay rent, or worry about keeping food on the table, having money to do some fun activities once in awhile. With that money, some budgeting, and any new source of income, you can be fairly peaceful and stable for your son.
I recommend selling. But, we don’t know your full situation. If you have friends who have been through this, talk to them. Ask your lawyer for legal advice and so on here if needed to navigate some of this, but you will be fine on the other side. A few years from now, a new normal will be here, and your life will be better than it is now, trust me.
How did you and your ex buy a $622k house and have nothing after the divorce? Did you not have a good lawyer to where you actually got half?
What’s your income? Expenses? Will you receive child support?
If you have to sell the house sell the house. Go rent a small apartment in his school district. Is it part of your divorce agreement to stay in his school district? If you can’t afford a home and there’s no rentals, you unfortunately don’t have a choice but to move to a different district. I know that is probably more upsetting news for your son as his life is changing rapidly but you can’t afford it
Having someplace to live trumps remaining in the same school district. Sell the house and move to a more affordable area. Your half of the profit from the house is plenty for a down payment and emergency savings in a MCOL area.
How could you afford a 1.1 mil house and have literally nothing? If you make no money and have no money and your husband paid for everything, you should have taken him to the cleaners in the divorce…
Maybe talk to your lawyer and see about revisiting that?
Pull yourself together. You’re worthy of love and happiness. Sell the house and start fresh.
so the title is 100%, in your name alone.
& you have 3 basic options:
1) pay off the mortgage in full. apologize to your parents & see if they will still give you that money.
2) get a new mortgage without your Ex husbands name on it.
3) sell it and pocket around $500k profit after everything.
assuming you have a job, and you can make the mortgage payments, your best option seems to be getting a new 30 year mortgage in your name alone for $550K.
if the house is worth $1.1 million, most lenders will give you a mortgage for $550k even without a great credit score because the house already has so much equity in it. (probably 7-8% if bad credit, with a $3,600 a month payment before escrow).
my suggestion (assuming you have a job & and can make the payments) is you try to keep the house and get a new mortgage for it, we are Not talking a remodeling loan/refinance or Heloc, we are talking a whole new mortgage. start talking to different lenders & mortgage companies in your area.
if making the mortgage payment by yourself will be pushing your financial limits, you might be able to get a roommate or two depending on the number of bedrooms and the houses layout/features. how many bedrooms does the house have?
if you want to sell it, you will pocket around $500k, to me $500K is a huge amount of money & you can probably buy a small house somewhere nearby. where do you live?
One thing to check on is if your mortgage lender will do an assumption of debt. It’s like refinancing, but it’s done internally in the mortgage lender and they’ll let you keep your current interest rate.