If you’re going through a difficult divorce and trying to figure out what to do about your unwanted real estate, then keep reading this blog post to give you our best suggestions about selling your house while divorcing in Connecticut…
Divorce can be challenging and emotional. Yet, in the midst of the difficult situation, you might be like other divorcing couples who own a house and are trying to figure out how to go about selling your house while divorcing in Connecticut. Here are our best strategies and ideas to help you navigate the real estate portion of your divorce as carefully and efficiently as possible.
Houses In Divorce Can Be Complicated
During a divorce, the two parties seek to split their assets in half. For some assets are liquid (such as money), it’s very easy to do. For other assets, including real estate, it’s much harder to do because how do you split a house in half? It’s one asset that derives its value from being whole, and it’s usually a structure built on a plot of land, so it’s not going anywhere.
Since cutting the house down the middle isn’t an option, should one party get it or the other? And how would that get decided? And maybe in some divorces, one party might be invited to take the house only if they can pay for it (which is a massive expense a time that people rarely want to incur such expenses) and in most situations, many people aren’t in a position to buy out their ex for the house.
Here’s How To Split The Real Estate Asset
The best way to split the real estate asset is to sell it:
As stated above, the solid structure of a property that can’t be split in two, can simply be turned into cash, which can be separated and split between the two parties.
The property itself might have some expenses incurred during the sales process, or there might be outstanding bills, or there might still be a partial outstanding mortgage on the property. So the two divorcing parties should probably just sell the property and direct their attorneys to apply the money earned from the equity to any outstanding debts.
The remaining amount can then be split between each party, with each party getting an agreed-upon percentage (such as 50/50). Or whatever percentage makes sense based on the financial circumstances related to the original purchase.
But this begs the question — how do you sell the property?
The Fastest Way To Sell A Divorce House
When it comes time to sell the house, most people automatically think about looking for a real estate agent, assuming this is the only way to get the house sold. Unfortunately there’s a few problems with this, and it could potentially create new problems:
- the agent will make the owners pay out-of-pocket to fix up the property first — but who pays for that?
- the agent will then list the house, which can take 3-6 months to sell (sometimes longer) — can either party wait that long? Do the parties need the proceeds from the sale to purchase a new house? Do the parties have another place to stay while the house is listed or is one of them going to stay in the house while its on the market? If so, who will be responsible for the utilities, insurance, and mortgage payments?
- the agent will then involve both parties in the negotiation with the buyer and there is A LOT of paperwork to shuffle back and forth
This is a costly and time-consuming way to sell, and it can actually make the divorce proceedings so much worse by adding so many other decisions to be made where there needs to be agreement or compromise.
Fortunately, there’s another way to sell and that’s to sell your house to a real estate buying firm (which is what we do here at Fair Home Offers CT, LLC). The real estate buying firm will buy your house quickly, for cash, in as-is condition (and as a bonus, there are never any commissions or fees to pay). You don’t have to clean up or fix up the property and the sale can be completed in days, not months, with very little paperwork.
If you’re going through divorce and want to just be done with it and move on with your life, just reach out to us and tell us about the house you want to sell. We specialize in buying divorce houses and we can help you expedite your divorce by buying this house from you. There’s no need to drag the process out for any longer than it needs to. We’ve helped other divorcing couples by buying their properties with great success, allowing everyone (many times with kids involved) to move on with their lives.