I’m going to identify one of the principals here because it’s me. In all of my blathering, I’ve never written about my own matrimonial home resolution.
We did a collaborative divorce, thank goodness and the Coalition for Family Justice, and I remained in the house we had bought together 10 years prior. The process in our case took longer than typical, mainly because we both had moved on and were busy with our new lives and co-parenting our children. But the stipulation agreement we drew up was that I would refinance the house and take the deed out of her name when financially possible.
4 years later, I refinanced and did just that.
Now, most people and certainly lawyers will want resolution of marital assets much faster than that, but we chose the terms ourselves, and we were both comfortable with the ambiguities on deadlines and the timeframe. In the end, she was happy to attend the closing and sign off on the deed, and I was pretty pleased that the interest rate and payment were both much lower than before.
The takeaway here is that mature adults can negotiate their own agreements, and while legal advice is absolutely crucial and necessary, we made our decision jointly on how to do it.
I can’t stress this enough. If you have to sell, you need a good agent who understands this matrimonial sale process. And it is perfectly fine to not sell- a good agent ought to tell you that as well. A true professional is in this for the long game, not the quick deal.
