All Forum Posts by: Jennifer Hulse

To answer your questions:

Both houses are in both names.
We've made all our payments on both houses.
The beach house is $200K under water. We're coming to the table with that amount.
The loan on the marital home is about $540K.

My husband and I are just divorced. We were selling a beach house with closed at the end of the month. It's way under water. But we need to separate everything. My ex-husband doesn't want to approach the beach house bank to ask for a short sale. Here's why.

We also have to refinance our marital home, which my ex is keeping. That house is not underwater. My ex says that we can't ask the beach house lender for a deal because if the bank which is refinancing the marital home finds out they won't approve the refi.

We can easily pay both mortgages, but a divorce is considered a hardship. That's why I think it's worth a try. I don't believe what my husband says.

What do you say?

Yet another thought. What if we just walked away from the beach house and foreclosed?

What happens at a sheriff's sale? Does the divorcee win the deed, doesn't own the house and it gets sold because of the mortgage? Just curious.

I know, this 90 deed thing is a red flag indeed. He's really really intelligent. He does his homework, which is what he's done on the beach house. He must know all the deed, tax and other ramifications. He just hopes I won't find out.

So thank God for Bigger Pockets. If I hadn't found all of you I would have fallen for everything. He's sooo sincere when he talks about things.

The beach house is in Sunset Beach, NC. It's the most beautiful beach ever. 424 37th St. Sunset Beach. Look for it on Google Earth.

On to reply #2, my ex is keeping the house. We've had it formally appraised, so he has to pay me the agreed upon sum. That's why I'm wondering about the quit claim when all we have to do is refinance. I'll take my name off the deed as the same time as the refi. Not before. Right?

My ex is seriously crazy - you wouldn't believe what I've been going through. So I don't want to be tricked into doing something I'll regret later. If I quit claim 90 days prior to refi, aren't I liable for any secret home equity loans?

One last question on a slightly different topic. We have to refi on our marital home. He'll have to pay me half of the proceeds. However, he now wants me to do a quit claim deed (held in escrow?) while he has 90 days to refinance. I'm not going to do it. But do you have any ideas why he would want me to hand over ownership before it's refinanced? Could he stop paying the mortgage to ruin my credit? Thoughts?

All really good advice. I need to get "on the horn" today and get this worked out.

Thank you , thank you, thank you to all who responded to this. I could have been in really hot water. I swore to myself when this whole thing started that I wasn't going to sink under all the tyranny I've been put through these past 8 months. Well, and I guess I'll add the past 22 years as well.

It's 9:00. Time to start calling my financial advisor to see who he knows.

Thanks again!

Bill and Jon,

Perfect advice. We haven't finished the SA, so we can add anything. She's not a real estate attorney, so she doesn't know a lot about this. But I'll talk to her today.

I don't think my almost ex has done a lot of thinking about it either. I'll talk to him today. He seems to be in a good mood. But you never know.

We all need to have a good talk about this. I don't want to be partners with a control freak who says he does't have any money. If I have it, he has more.

Michael,

You make an excellent point. This whole divorce is coming to a close. And I'm a bit frazzled.

We can write into the Settlement Agreement that the house will be sold and we split the difference. If he doesn't have the cash now, he can pay me in increments. All of that can go into the SA. Either that, or we go to court. I have leverage because I will get more than that from my half of the marital home. I willing to spend it. He doesn't have that money.

I judge will tell us to sell and split the difference of the loss of the beach house. Period.

The rental time is only during the summer and doesn't cover the cost of the mortgage. My husband is a HUGE control freak, which is why I'm divorcing him. That's why, to get to your point finally, I understand now that I really need to force him to sell and make it easy for him to pay me back (with interest).

I thought that with the LLC in his name, all written up in legal language, would work out. But I see now that it really would be just another means of controlling me.

Thanks to everyone!

Thanks so much for your reply. Here is some clarification.

The house is in the decree, but it states only that we'll deal with the problem on our own. We are upside down to the tune of $150K. I want to sell and get it over with. He says he doesn't have the money. But if I do, then so does he.

We can easily pay the mortgage. That was the problem with the short sale. We make too much money. Plus, he has to refinance our home here to get me off the mortgage. If the beach house lender finds out, they won't do a short sale. So there are many reasons why that won't work.

Then, my husband wanted us to be partners in an LLC and use the house as a business so we could deduct the mortgage interest and depreciate things, etc. We would rent it as well. But for obvious reasons, I'm not going into business with him. The current idea is to get me off the deed only and have a document drawn up stating that I am absolved of all responsibility. Then he starts his own LLC.

We're both on the mortgage, an interest only loan as well.

I see there are a lot of issues here that I didn't know about. Thank you so much for bringing them up to me.