There are many good reasons to want to keep the family home when your marriage ends. It may provide a convenient base. You may have neighbors you’re close to, or you may have put a lot of effort into making the property a nice place to live.
Nevertheless, it is important to understand what keeping the home in the divorce will mean for the bigger picture. The house must be considered in the overall division of property. If you keep it, your spouse will likely need to be compensated with other marital assets. Here are just a couple of things to consider.
What it is worth
You’ll need to value it correctly, which may require help from those who work in the real estate field. That can help you understand what your spouse would be entitled to in exchange for giving up the house. This can be especially tricky if property prices look set to rise or have slumped. There may be an imbalance between what you paid for it or what it could be worth if sold in a few years’ time and what it is worth right now, making agreeing on a number difficult.
What it will cost to maintain
If you keep the house at the cost of most of the other assets you own together, you might soon struggle to afford it. Monthly bills as well as insurance and property tax payments can mount and leave you financially vulnerable if you do not exit the marriage with sufficient liquid assets.
If you still have a mortgage, you’ll likely need to refinance the mortgage in your name only if you keep the home. You’d need to be sure you still meet a lender’s requirements for the mortgage on your own.
Many spouses who would love to keep their house decide it is wiser to sell it and purchase something less expensive to maintain instead. It’s crucial to weigh all the pros and cons. Mediating your divorce makes it easier to have honest conversations about essential details like this that might get forgotten in a more confrontational route to ending the marriage.