How to Sell a House During Divorce

A window with shattered glass.

Divorce is often a heartbreaking situation for everyone involved. Deciding that you’re ready to dissolve your marriage can be a process fraught with emotion. It can be even more complicated when you have to consider how to divide and/or dispose of shared property. When it comes to handling the next steps for your shared home, there are a number of ways things can play out if you want to sell a house during a divorce.

Negotiate a Buyout

If one spouse wants to stay in the home, they may be prepared to buy the other out in order to do so. This is especially common if the parent planning to be the primary caregiver for the couple’s child(ren) wants to keep them in a place where they feel comfortable or in a neighborhood that ensures they’ll be able to stay in their current school.

Alternately, one spouse may be more attached to the home than the other and not be willing to leave it behind. Maybe you owned the home before your marriage and added your spouse to the mortgage after, so it means less to them. If both parties find this plan amenable and can agree on a fair price, this can be a good option.

Continue to Co-Own

This can be very tricky to navigate, but if you and your soon-to-be ex-spouse are committed to making it work, it is doable. This could go one of two ways: One of you could stay in the home, or you could both leave and then rent the home. Either way, both parties retain their ownership stake and therefore share responsibility for repairs and upkeep, but they will also both benefit equally from any future sale of the home.

If you expect your home to increase in value, and you’d like to wait until that time to sell, this is a great way to do so. It may not work well in particularly contentious divorces, though, as it requires both parties to maintain contact and work as a team as it applies to their shared property.

Sell After Things Are Finalized

Some couples may choose instead to make plans to sell their home after the divorce is finalized and split the profits accordingly. This is a pretty popular choice, and it allows the family time to find two new homes and work out the details of custody and other asset division before putting the house on the market.

The downside here is that divorce proceedings can drag out for quite a while. The traditional real estate process also comes with its fair share of demands and delays, so you may be looking at a year or more of living in a sort of limbo before you can close the book on this chapter of your lives. For some couples, this may prolong the process of emotionally healing from the split and prevent them from being able to move on in a timely fashion.

Sell A House During Divorce

What if none of these options sound great to you? What if your situation demands a faster resolution? Selling your house during the divorce is also an option.

Say you and your spouse both feel you wouldn’t want to stay in the house after the split. If you agree that you also don’t want to wait until the divorce is finalized to cut ties and make a fresh start, selling your home fast for cash can be a great way to handle this difficult task with minimal stress for everyone.

You can go the For Sale By Owner route, but you’ll need to be prepared to do lots of footwork in terms of preparing, photographing, listing, and showing the home, as well as negotiating with potential buyers and processing all the sale paperwork. If that feels like an overwhelming load to handle in the midst of something as draining as divorce, a reputable cash homebuying company could be a perfect fit.

The Buy Guys purchase houses throughout Florida. Our experts can help you get a fair price, in cash, and on your timeline. If you’re going through a divorce and looking to sell your home in Florida, give us a call today so that we can help you sell your house for cash fast and allow your family to move forward.