Owners are divorced and hate each other

[Jose Guevarra]

Hi,

INITIAL SITUATION:

I found a property in pre-forclosure where the owners are on title and on the mortgage but, they have been divorced for years and hate each other and live far from each other. We are planning on giving the husband(who is a meth head and likely sex offender) an offer that will pay off his mortgage and he will walk away from the home.  He agreed to this and we were going to give him about $2500 for moving expenses.  

However, he changed his mind when he realized that his ex-wife was going to get half the $2500 which we explained to him earlier and he agreed to(I told you he was a meth head).

CURRENT SITUATION:

We are going to offer to pay off the mortgage and give him $15K which again he'll have to split with his wife.  

Can you think of any other options that we can exercise? What could we have done differently to avoid all this? Is there a way that we could have avoided this by getting the wife to sign over rights to the home? Quick Deed?