Dividing Property During Divorce
Are you considering divorce and have concerns about whether you will lose your house or other assets? Watch this video by experienced Jamestown divorce lawyer Scott Humble to learn more about dividing property during divorce in New York.
I met with a divorce client this week with a huge concern about losing assets because of the divorce. His particular attention and focus was if will he lose his house during the divorce. I guess the answer is probably not, as long as we can work something out. If there’s litigation hard and fast with the other side, and they’re fighting and won’t agree to anything, frankly, the judge is going to order that the house is sold and the equity is split 50/50. Generally speaking, if that doesn’t happen, usually what we can do is work it out so that one party can go and buy out the other party’s interest.
What I mean by that is there’s going to be a determination, either through agreement or appraisals, as far as how much the house is worth. Then you take away from that anything that is owed against the house, and then the in-between part is going to be your profit, or what we call equity. That equity is split between the two parties, so you divide it by two, and that’s the amount that one party has to go and pay on the other party to and be able to buy off the interest. That is the normal course of action that we can normally work out.
Now, the concern with the party that is being paid and not keeping the house is that is going to be leverage against their credit score or their income-to-debt ratio, so as far as them going out and getting future credit, especially on another mortgage for a house, that is going to be detrimental to their credit score and income-to-debt ratio, so there’s a time limit put on the situation as far as how fast the case must be refinanced; whoever gets the house must refinance the house, usually within six to eighteen months, so it won’t detrimentally affect the other person.
Do you have questions about dividing property during divorce? Contact experienced Jamestown divorce lawyer Scott F. Humble for a free confidential consultation. Let his 30+ years of experience work for you.
