Help with the house
For most people the house is the largest thing in the divorce and the one they are least ready to think about. This page sets out what actually happens to it, what each route costs, and — the part almost nobody writes down — when the right answer is not to sell at all.
If you are reading this for somebody else. People often land here because a friend sent it. If that is what you are about to do, thecusp.app/for-a-friend is written for you rather than for them — four things that help more than anything you could say, six sentences people reach for that land badly and why, and what to send instead of answering a legal question yourself. Free, no account, nothing to sign up for.
Setting up the second household is its own expense, and it arrives all at once. The two-household list is the answer you can send them — the second of everything, and the half of it that costs nothing. Some people call it a divorce registry.
Before you list, sell or refinance anythingIn twenty-two states a court order takes effect on both spouses once a divorce case starts, barring either of you from selling or encumbering the property. In most of them nobody serves it separately and nobody explains it. Breaking it is contempt. Check whether your state is one of the twenty-two before you do anything with the house.
The short version4 points · tap one to jump to it
- The four things that can happen to it — Two of them involve nobody selling anything.
- When not to call an agent — An automatic order is in force.
- What an agent can and cannot do here
- If you want to talk to somebody — It is not a lead form that gets passed around: nothing is sent to anyone else unless you ask for an introduction, and if you would rather just be pointed at the right page and left alone, say so and that is what happens.
In this subject 5
The four things that can happen to it
In twenty-two states a court order takes effect on both spouses once a divorce case starts, barring either of you from selling or encumbering the property. In most of them nobody serves it separately and nobody explains it. Breaking it is contempt. Check whether your state is one of the twenty-two before you do anything with the house.
The short version4 points · tap one to jump to it
- The four things that can happen to it — Two of them involve nobody selling anything.
- When not to call an agent — An automatic order is in force.
- What an agent can and cannot do here
- If you want to talk to somebody — It is not a lead form that gets passed around: nothing is sent to anyone else unless you ask for an introduction, and if you would rather just be pointed at the right page and left alone, say so and that is what happens.
In this subject 5
Almost every divorce lands on one of these. Two of them involve nobody selling anything.
One of you buys the other out
The person staying refinances into their own name and pays the other their share of the equity. This is the route people most often assume is impossible and most often is not.
The test is not whether you want it. It is whether you can qualify for the mortgage on your own income, which is a different and more answerable question — and support you receive can sometimes count toward it. Qualifying on your own.
Getting your name off the old loan is a separate step from the decree and it does not happen automatically. Getting off the joint mortgage.
A deferred sale — you sell later
The house is sold at a defined future point: when the youngest finishes school, at a set date, or when a stated event happens. One of you lives there meanwhile.
It needs more written down than anything else on this list — who pays the mortgage, the taxes, the insurance and the repairs in the meantime, who takes the gain, and what happens if the person living there stops paying.
We earn nothing from this route, and for a household with young children it is frequently the right one.
You sell and divide the proceeds
The cleanest financially and the hardest emotionally. It ends the joint debt, ends the argument about who pays for the roof, and gives each of you a deposit.
Timing is the whole game: selling into a bad month costs more than most people negotiate over. Selling the marital home covers the sequence.
If a case is filed, an automatic order may already bar either of you from selling without written consent or a court order. The orders that take effect the moment somebody files.
The court divides it
If you cannot agree, a judge will, and the outcome depends on your state’s rules rather than on either of your preferences.
Worth knowing before you dig in: what your state does with a house is set out on the house and in your own state kit.
| Route | What has to be true | The thing that goes wrong | Do we earn anything? |
|---|---|---|---|
| One of you buys the other out | You can qualify for the mortgage on your own income. Support you receive can sometimes count toward it. Qualifying on your own | The buyout number and the true carrying cost are settled before either has been worked out properly. Getting your name off the old loan is a separate step that does not happen with the decree. | No. Nothing. |
| A deferred sale — you sell later | A defined future trigger, and terms written down: who pays the mortgage, taxes, insurance and repairs meanwhile, and who takes the gain. | It needs more written down than anything else on this list, and usually has the least. What happens if the person living there stops paying is the clause people omit. | No. Nothing. |
| You sell and divide the proceeds | No automatic order barring it, and a timing decision made on purpose rather than by default. | Tax, not price. The capital gains exclusion is $500,000 filing jointly and $250,000 single — when you sell relative to when you divorce can decide which one you get. | Yes — if you ask for an introduction and the sale completes. |
| The court divides it | You cannot agree. The outcome then depends on your state’s rules, not on either of your preferences. Your state kit | People dig in on a position before finding out what their state actually does with a house, and pay for the argument twice. | No. Nothing. |
Three of the four routes earn us nothing, and they are set out here in the same detail as the one that does. That is deliberate, and how we make money explains why.
When not to call an agent
An automatic order is in force. In many states, the moment a petition is filed, both spouses are barred from selling or encumbering property without written consent or a court order. Listing a house in breach of one is contempt. Find out first.
You have not had the house valued independently. An agent’s opinion of value and a formal appraisal are different documents doing different jobs, and in a contested case you may need the second.
You are only one of you. If the other owner has not agreed, an agent cannot list it, and asking one to try will cost you goodwill you may need later.
You have not worked out what two households cost. Selling to afford two homes only works if two homes are affordable. What two households cost and can I afford to leave come first.
There is violence in this. Then the house is a safety question before it is a financial one. Protective orders, and the exclusive use of a home is something a court can order.
What an agent can and cannot do here
- Can: tell you what the house would realistically sell for now, and what it would cost to get it there. That number changes negotiations more than anything else in the file.
- Can: tell you what a buyout is worth, which is the same number seen from the other side, and one both of you need.
- Can: handle a sale where the two owners are not speaking, which is a specific skill and not every agent has it.
- Cannot: tell you how the equity should be split. That is your state’s law and your agreement.
- Cannot: list the house without both owners, or act against an automatic order.
- Cannot: give you tax advice. A capital gains exclusion on a marital home depends on filing status, occupancy and timing, and getting it wrong is expensive — ask a CPA before you agree to a date.
If you want to talk to somebody
This goes to Hyleri, who replies herself. It is not a lead form that gets passed around: nothing is sent to anyone else unless you ask for an introduction, and if you would rather just be pointed at the right page and left alone, say so and that is what happens.
There is no cost for the conversation and no obligation of any kind. If the answer is that you should not sell, that is the answer you will get — and it is the one that earns us nothing.
Whoever you end up talking to, four questions will tell you quickly whether they have done a divorce sale before. There is a printable version with room to write the answers down.
- A license we checked ourselves, with the regulator. Not a screenshot they sent us. We look it up with the state agency that issued it, record the date, and re-check on that license’s own renewal date. Any unresolved disciplinary action is a no.
- Six closed sales, from their own MLS records. At least three in each of the last two full calendar years. It is a low bar on purpose — we are excluding the agent who renewed a license and did nothing with it, because you cannot afford to be somebody’s first deal back.
- A rating of 4.7 or better, across everywhere they are reviewed. Not their best page — all of them together, and at least ten reviews. We do not require five stars and we are suspicious of them: a divorce sale has two people in it and at least one is often unhappy however well the agent behaves.
- Our training, and its twenty questions. Sixteen of twenty to pass, free, unlimited retakes. The first module is the one that matters — in many states an automatic order takes effect the moment a divorce is filed, and most agents have never heard of one.
And then we check on you, not on them. We email you at seven days and ask two questions: did they get in touch, and how did it go. We ask again at six months. An agent who did not call will say they did, so we do not ask the agent. We also read the public deed record on any property we referred.
None of that has run yet, because we have not made a referral yet. It is written in the future tense on purpose. The standards in full, so you can check them rather than take our word.
Introductions happen on their own page, deliberately: this page has no form on it and nothing to sell you, and it stays that way.
Ask for an introduction to an agent →* — who we would introduce you to, what the referral fee is, who pays it, and why the answer is sometimes that you should not sell at all.
* How we are paid. Hyleri, who writes this site, is a licensed real estate agent with Compass in Connecticut and Florida. In Fairfield County, Connecticut and Palm Beach County, Florida she may work with you herself, paid a commission by whoever sells the house. Anywhere else she introduces a local agent and, if that sale completes, receives a referral fee out of that agent’s commission, through Compass — never added to what you pay. Nothing else on The Cusp works this way: nobody pays to be in the professional directory. How we make money has the whole picture.
Choosing an agent for a divorce sale is a different problem from choosing one for an ordinary sale: who the agent is allowed to talk to, who has to sign, what happens when one of you will not, and the three separate conflicts of interest that come up when one spouse found the agent first. How to choose a real estate agent for a divorce sale sets out what to ask, and how to check a credential yourself — no divorce credential is official with the National Association of Realtors.
The Cusp receives a referral fee from agents it vets and trains to handle divorce clients.
Who has to sign when one of you will not, what an automatic temporary order stops you doing the day you file, and the two lines of federal tax law that decide what the house is actually worth after the split — selling the house in a divorce. The sentence about § 121(d)(3)(B) is the one most people are never told.