Even though we don't get along in the marriage we are still good friends.  

Before same-sex marriage became legal across the land, some states (MA, NH, DE specifically, I think, but I could be wrong) enacted legislation to protect unmarried same sex partners in this exact situation and it applies equally to unmarried hetero couples as well.However, children - particularly minor children - have some protection here as well and a court would not necessarily ignore them in favor of an unmarried partner, particularly if the house was the sole asset of the decedent.A married spouse usually receives all assets of the decedent and if the girlfriend can claim common law (or if it was already established prior to his death) through the state they were living in, she could receive it all.That said, I do not believe the mortgage company will permit a dead person to remain on a mortgage once probate is settled, so the house would have to move into a trust or to somebody else's name and the ex-wife would then be able to remove her name from it and move on.So yeah - I'm thinking out loud, but the above are all issues or question I would ask a SUPER COMPETENT attorney.

Sellers step-father died in 1981 and the seller doesn't know if he had any siblings or if this was his first marriage. 

Great story ... my takeaway: BA home ownership = good investment (most times) ... marriage = bad investment (sometimes) ...

But I've seen it happen frequently.I have personally listened to about a dozen self-serving explanation of why a guy who's been married for years cheated on his wife and damaged his marriage.

I went back to school and earned by BA and MA while continuing to work full time, all along saving and getting yearly raises as contracts were approved.We intentionally did not have children for six years of marriage because we knew that our educational goals needed to be realized first.We continued this way through life and my wife eventually also got a nice paying job. 

Hi Justine, I am the RE obsessed in our marriage, hubby is cooperative but not obsessed like me :).

I would look up the deed online, and maybe have your title company/closing agent run a preliminary title search to see how it looks under the hood.Obviously, transitioning from a maiden name to a married name is a common occurrence and your closing agent would know how to handle that aspect - It would probably be verified with her marriage license or similar documentation.

Can vouch for Andrew Schultz at Own Buffalo - he's managed my properties for 3-4 years now and in that short period of time I've run into just about every issue you can imagine; problems with toilet, trees falling in storm, trees falling a separate time and crushing a newly stained fence, roof leak, basement flooded, and a list of needy tenant issues - bottom line is Andrew Schultz probably saved my marriage.

It personally sounded like an odd story to me, or else they have a very strange marriage.