My STBXW is supposed to be working on getting the house refinanced to buy out my portion. She mentioned having me be part of the approval process so she could be approved for the loan which would help things move along more quickly.

I don't know how it would work, but would my name have to be on the actual loan? I definitely do not intend to put my name on the loan itself.

Anyone know of a process where I somehow help her get approved (since both our names are on the first loan and Deed) without being on the actual loan? And then do a quit deed I believe it is?

Thanks in advance

<small>[ February 02, 2004, 09:52 AM: Message edited by: Eduard ]</small>

There are two things you need to keep in mind.
There is mortgage (loan) and the title to the house.

If your name is on the loan, you owe money. End of story. A quitclaim deed will NOT remove ANY obligation from you to repay the loan. A divorce decree giving your ex the house will NOT remove ANY obligation from you to repay the loan.

A quitclaim deed simply removes any claim you have to ownership of the house (not the mortgage).
A mortgage company will need a quitclaim deed in order to refinance the house in her name only.
On the quitclaim deed, it specifies that you remove any claim to ownership in the house for (xx dollars and the boat, or whatever).

I guess she could use you as a reference for the loan (NOT a co-signer). I don’t know why else you would be involved in her loan.

As an aside, credit cards are the same way. If you have joint credit cards, then you BOTH owe the money, even if the court gives her all the debt (or vice-versa). A divorce decree giving her the debt will not do much. The credit companies are not concerned with this.

I agree with Chris-CA response. If she can't qualify alone, there are no income qualifier programs that she can look into. Although, the interest rate is slightly higher, this maybe her only choice to get a loan.

FYI, if you choose to help her out, there are ways you can protect your credit and your ability to qualify for a home loan later.

Good Luck...

Since I just went through this, I'm hoping I can help a little. Especially since I'm coming at it from the other side!

I was keeping the house, and my husband was very anxious to get his name off the mortgage. He has gotten himself into some financial difficulties (fortunately, most things were separate and he hasn't taken me with him down that road!) and he wanted his name off the mortgage because it was hurting him as far as getting credit...at least, he thinks it was. Since it was one of the few things in his name getting paid regularly and on time, I have a feeling it was helping somewhat, but whatever....

Anyway, the goal for me was to not have his name on anything associated with the house, and to not have him at closing. I had my lawyer prepare the quitclaim deed ahead of time, and he signed it in front of a notary a few days ahead of time, and then I had the mortgage company record the deed at closing. The way they wanted to handle it, at first however, was to have him come to closing to sign papers. I didn't want him there, so I arranged it this way, and I had a tough time doing it. Technically, it did mean he was signing over the house while his name was still on the mortgage... but as I pointed out to him, he's never had a problem with me keeping my word to him!

Anyway, that could be what she's talking about - she may just be wanting you to be at the closing to sign off on the deed. It turns out, there are several other places in the paperwork, closing up the old loan, where they kind of wanted him to sign that too. But I was concerned - they had screwed up some of the papers, and had him on some that he really shouldn't have been on. They insisted it was all right, they would just fix them later. But I was glad I had insisted on him NOT being at closing; otherwise, I'm afraid he would have ended up signing some of those papers, because we might neither one have realized which ones he really did need to sign and which ones he didn't.

I would keep two things in mind - be very careful about anything you sign for her, because you don't want to have to be responsible anymore. You may even want to have your lawyer look over anything she wants you to sign. And if you are attending closing, insist on getting a copy of the paperwork first, and ahead enough so that you can check what papers your name is on, and whether or not they are things you really should be signing. The mortgage company and the title company doing the closing don't really care if you get screwed by your name being attached somewhere it shouldn't be, they just care about covering their own butts!

And I would not help her out if it means in any way that you will be responsible for anything. Anything like that is just that much more you will have to deal with her on in the future.

Thanks all.

Yeah, it is a pain in the rear situation to deal with and 2000 miles between us makes things that much more difficult to get accomplished.

Hopefully she'll get her things figured out because she wasn't even sure how it worked when it was explained to her.

I know for myself I want to find out as much as I can about the different scenarios and how things should work before signing anything.

Eduard,
Everything the others have posted here is correct.

I'm not sure if the following law applies to you or not, but my lawyer just informed me of it last week, when I was asking about house buying questions..

Where I live (NC) a married person cannot purchase real property without the spouse signing some formal paper which releases them from involvement in it. In other words, I cannot buy a new house without informing my H that I am planning to do so, and getting him to sign some legal form. Obviously if we were divorced it would not be an issue. Since you are not divorced yet, that rule may apply to you also.

Anyway, this might not apply to you, but I thought I'd pass it on just in case.

It's fairly simple. SHE arranges for financing in her OWN name.
She should arrange for what is owed on the current mortgage plus closing costs plus 1/2 of the equity in the house (plus anything she may want to take out for herself).

When everything is ready to sign, you go to the closing and sign the quitclaim deed. On the quitclaim it will say specifically you give up all rights to the house in exchange for 1/2 the equity (it should list an amount).

You get a check for 1/2 the equity.
Her new mortgage will pay off the old.

Get at least two (preferably three) valuations of your house to figure out the equity.

I would recommend that you consult with a lawyer who specializes in commercial law to make sure that you are protected. You want to make sure that you can't be sued if she defaults.

I would recommend that you consult with a lawyer who specializes in commercial law to make sure that you are protected. You want to make sure that you can't be sued if she defaults.
It’s a house, not a business.

If his name is on the mortgage and she defaulted, he would owe. Pretty much a cut & dried.

Thanks Supermom, Penguin, Avondale25, Chris (you da man as usual) and Yosh.

I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something here with what she was trying to tell me.

In the area I live in lawyers who specialize in commercial law are expected to do business AND home conveyance agreements. I know of no lawyer who subspecializes only in "home realstate" law. IMO it would be worth the money to get a legal opinion as to how to protect yourself if your ex defaults.

Just a quick follow-up for you too, on something that I'm dealing with now in all of this...

I recently got something from the title company stating that a paper didn't get signed during closing that they needed for the mortgage, and that my husband and I needed to sign it in front of a notary and get it back to them. The problem? It was for the loan itself, not transferring over the house. My husband, as I said before, didn't sign anything except the quitclaim that he did ahead of time, because I wanted to absolutely make sure he had no further claim on the house.

So, I called the title company. After going back and forth about it a bit, we finally realized the paperwork they wanted us to sign was for the re-finance my husband and I did back in 2002, before I even knew about his affair. I explained to her that I had since re-financed in my name only, and that I doubted my husband would want to sign anything at this point, that I have a hard time even getting ahold of him. She said she would research it some more and get back to me to let me know what they wanted to do.

In the meantime.... the papers came, addressed to my husband (and yes, I opened them. If it comes to my address, I open it. Too much got hidden from me by not making that my policy!) They were the papers showing the mortgage in both our names to be paid in full. However, they were accompanied by a letter that says that the mortgage company cannot actually discharge the loan, due to the fact that the loan was never actually recorded. I am guessing it has to do with that piece of paper that never got signed and filed.

What does all of that mean? Heck if I know. Given all that my husband has pulled on me in all this, I will admit there is a part of me that says "Hey, I got the new loan in my own name, I have my house in my name, I can show I did what I was supposed to do, and I'm not going to have any problems over this, so forget it." Fortunately for him, no matter how much of a jerk he is to me, I believe in acting fairly and honestly. So I will take the time, get ahold of the mortgage and title companies and find out what needs to be done to straighten this all out, and take care of it. I don't know what, if any, effect all of this would have on him if I didn't.

The moral here is - unless you KNOW you can count on your wife's good will to take care of anything that comes up, it would probably be worth the money for the lawyer to make sure all the t's are crossed and the i's dotted. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" /> My husband, I know, actually doesn't trust me, and if he had any clue any of this was a problem, he would be going nuts right now. Fortunately for him, I can be trusted regardless of what he thinks - I guess he just assumes that since he would be dishonest, everyone would.....

Another point of view on this business of quit-claiming, refinancing, etc.

Have you considered that after your Ex buys your 1/2 of the equity, then IF she defaults you get to sell the house AGAIN! I.E., you would get to sell the house twice in practical terms making the profit on it 2 times!

The 2nd sale to a third party wouldn't provide you with as much profit, since there wouldn't be as much equity, but it would be the appreciation (assuming your home is in an area that appreciates) since you first sold out to your W, PLUS you would be splitting the remaining equity once again in my opinion.

I see what you're talking about High Flight, but I don't think that would be possible.

If she buys out my 1/2, then I take my name off of the deed and only hers would be left. If she then defaulted, she would have to sell with only her name on the deed thus it would only be her sale.

If she buys out my 1/2, then I take my name off of the deed and only hers would be left.
If the only thing you do is a quitclaim to take your name off the deed, you will still be liable for entire amount owed on the house.
Make a SURE she ALSO gets it refinanced without your name.

Ed
Keep kicking a$$ and taking names. I'm going to keep the house and do the quit-claim refi. It all sounds pretty confusing. The mortgage person I talked to suggested doing the refi AFTER the Dv was final or atleast I'd gotten the papers together AND it would be a refi only in my name.

That's my $0.02. Hang in there brother.

Good Information. Very Helpful. I have a saga posting in another forum (pre-marriage the early years) anyways - this is one of my questions. H and I are about to plan the D day. We are to talk about it this weekend. In the mean time we are both living in the same house. From his initial "I can't live with you" I have been looking for another place to live. Well, it dawned on me last night as I was on the couch... why do I have to leave - - he wants out. So I approached him with that question. He said he put $105000. in the house to get us in when he sold his first house. I sold my house too - but was a bit more finanically insecure than he at the time and had to pay off a 2nd mortgage. So now he says - if I pay him $105,000.00 that I can stay in the house. Can anyone give me feed back on this - is this kosher - am I getting screwed. Otherwise he is saying "I'll give you 20 to 30k for you to walk" I say - NO - then you sell the house and make 1M. I am not stupid.
Please reply.

Generally you should get at least two estimates of the price from local realtors. Figure out how much you owe and split the difference, This is the amount it would cost to buy out the other.

Another thing to take into account is that when you both sold your old houses to purchase this one, the money became marital property (split 50/50).

If it went to court, the court would decide if it is marital property (most likely) or that the original amount goes back to whoever put it in (less likely, but still a possibility as with any court decision)

I'd start by figuring out what it is worth (get good estimates) and what you owe.

Sideways Sally- You may want to do some research as to how your state operates as far as how they determine what's Marital Assets and what is not.

Here's a link to a web page that discusses this in the state of Florida.

Assets

<small>[ February 11, 2004, 05:52 PM: Message edited by: Eduard ]</small>