Divorce is always a really tricky situation, and for most married couples the house they live in is their prized investment or asset. So who really deserves to get the house? It’s always a really complicated question to answer and every couple is different, but what we’re going to be doing in this article is help you navigate this important real estate divorce dilemma so you can put yourself in the right position to get the most out of your property in troubling marital times, but no matter what you’re going to want to make sure you have someone like a Divorce Attorney Philadelphia PA to help you get through these really complicated financial transactions.
The truth is that it primarily depends on where you live and if your home is a joint property or not, and that’s because state laws dictate asset division and property ownership for divorce cases. There are two main types of property distribution laws that vary from state to state, including equitable and community states.
In a community property state a divorcing couple will split all assets in half, which could technically mean that each of you are entitled to 50% of the home’s equity. In equitable distribution states it’s much different, and a judge will be the one who decides the division of the property fairly, which isn’t necessarily equally.
Another very important piece of divorce property distribution is when the property was purchased, because many times separate properties, or those that were inherited, gifted or purchased before the marriage, so technically your spouse will more than likely not be able to take away your home if you purchased it before you were married.
Marital or Community Properties
So let’s say that you’re dealing with a property that is designated as a marital home in that it’s not one spouse’s separate property. There are a lot of factors that will go into deciding who gets to keep the house in these kinds of homes, and many times the spouse that is awarded the custody of the children will be allowed to stay in the marital home.
Some of the factors that the court will look into include the following:
- — Each spouse’s financial contributions that went into the marital home
- — Financial circumstances of each spouse
- — The mental and physical health, as well as age, of each spouse
- — Who gets custody of the children
- — Who funded the marital home and family matters
- — Marital misconduct of both spouses
- — Job skills and employability of each spouse
- — The marital home’s value
You can always make your own agreement with your spouse in terms of dividing up all of your assets and property, but for the most part if you leave it up to a judge the judge is going to award the home to the spouse that wins the custody of the children. This helps kids keep the same friends and stay in the same schools so their lives aren’t unnecessarily shaken up by the divorce.
Dividing the Marital Home’s Equity
When the house is a marital asset it’s usually a couples biggest asset, and it’s always pretty complicated dividing up the equity between two people for any property, big or small.
Sometimes a judge will allow for the couple to share or split the entire equity of the home, which means each spouse has the right to their portion of the value of the marital home. There are many ways in which a spouse can receive their rewarded equity of a marital home, including the following:
- — Making one spouse buy out the other’s share
- — Awarding one spouse the home for a limited time and requiring the sale of the home by a specific date
- — Making the couple sell the house immediately and divide everything as agreed upon
- — Offsetting the equity of the home by giving more marital assets to the spouse who doesn’t receive the home
Deferred Distribution
Sometimes a couple wants to hold on to their home until the market picks up again so they end up getting more money, or until their children graduate high school or many other reasons. A deferred distribution is when the court sets up a date in which the house needs to be sold by a certain future date, and in these situations one spouse will be responsible for all the mortgage payments, insurance and other expenses.
