Things are very wierd with my ongoing divorce proceedings. Apparently my soon-to-be-ex has found a house in the area and has a contract on it already. She apparently has a closing date for mid February. So, now she is very anxious to get everything over and done with. She wants me to give her some kind of marital waiver.

Hmm, I guess the marriage really is over, isn't it?

She actually left me a message telling me all of this stuff, and that we don't have to wait until the next settlement conference - that we could just settle. It seems like the price of our house just went down some.

Thoughts? Any experience with marital waivers? I don't trust this woman one little bit, so I really need to be careful here.

Thanks!

I looked into it.
Since you are not yet divorced, there are issues with her buying a house alone. Ie. you could make a claim against it. In order for her to buy a house alone, she would need you to sign a waiver saying you had no rights to this newly purchased house.
If you want out, sign the waiver and make her life easier.
Or, as you said, you can use it as negotiating power to reset the purchase price of the marital home. However, if it is already set in writing, can you still negotiate?

It's called a quit-claim deed. Just sign it. You'll end up signing it eventually. The cost of going to court over getting it signed just isn't worth holding out. I did however, make my ex return a couple pieces of community property prior to signing it.

You do have leverage. If she's using marital assets to purchase it you have more than leverage. Have a neutral party look everything over if you don't have a lawyer. You don't have to go to court, but if you come across as a push-over you'll get less.

I went through this, purchased a house prior to settlement.

If she is using only her own assets, non-marital, you would have no claim on the house. If you were to claim an interest and she could show that no marital assets were used, you would have no claim. Nevertheless, some banks would be leary of this and require the waiver to cover themselves.

If she is using marital assets, you have an interest in the house. Unless you sign the waiver, she would have to buy out your part of the equity.

My opinion would be that if it is all her own assets, sign it. You have no claim anyway in that case and there is no reason not to sign it other than to be vindictive. If she is using marital assets, do not sign it unless you are given equal assets in return. You have a legitmate claim on that property if marital assets are used. If you're not sure, I wouldn't sign it until she can prove that no marital assets are used.

Its not a real complex issue. Run it by your attorney and he / she can advise you in short order.