The house: sell it, keep it, or rent instead

The house is usually the largest asset, the largest debt and the largest feeling in the whole divorce, and those three things pull in different directions. This section separates them. What the house is actually worth to you after tax, what it costs to keep, whether you can get a loan in your own name, and what happens to the mortgage you both signed.

The number nobody mentionsUp to 500,000 dollars The capital gains exclusion is 500,000 for a married couple filing jointly and 250,000 for a single filer. The timing of your sale relative to your divorce can decide which one you get.
The trap in equal divisionEqual is not equal A house and a retirement account of the same face value carry different tax. Under section 1041 you inherit your ex’s cost basis along with the house, and the bill arrives when you sell.
The thing people find out too lateThe decree is not a contract with your lenderA judge can order your ex to pay the mortgage. The bank never agreed to that, and your credit still carries it.
What do you need?
DecidingBorrowingAnd when you are ready to hire…
3 sections on this page. Pick one, or show everything.
The short version3 points · tap one to jump to it
  1. Deciding
  2. Borrowing
  3. And when you are ready to hire someone — If you ask for an introduction to an agent elsewhere, she receives a referral fee from that agent, paid out of their commission and never added to what you pay.
In this subject 3

Deciding

  • Selling — capital gains, basis, and the timing decisions that are worth real money
  • Keeping it — how a buyout is priced, what the house actually costs to run, and deferred sale orders
  • Renting instead — the honest case for not rushing back into ownership, and how to pass a screening with no history of your own

Borrowing

  • Qualifying on your own — how support is counted as income, and how it is counted against you if you pay it
  • Getting off the joint mortgage — refinance, assumption, release of liability, sale, and the VA entitlement problem
  • Credit — rebuilding it, and the accounts that stay joint no matter what the decree says

And when you are ready to hire someone

If you want to talk it through

Help with the house sets out the four things that can happen to it — a buyout, a deferred sale, a sale now, or the court deciding — and when it is too early to call an agent at all.

Disclosure: Hyleri Katzenberg · Compass — licensed real estate salesperson in Connecticut and Florida, and the person who writes this site. If you ask for an introduction to an agent elsewhere, she receives a referral fee from that agent, paid out of their commission and never added to what you pay. Nothing else on The Cusp works this way — nobody pays to be in the directory. How we make money.

If you want a name

We can introduce you to an agent who has done this kind of sale before — someone who knows what an automatic order does to a listing, and how to work a sale where the two owners are not speaking. There is no cost for the conversation and no obligation.

Ask for an introduction to an agent → — who we would introduce you to, what the referral fee is and who pays it, and why the answer is sometimes that you should not sell at all.

Sources last checked31 August 2026
Page published31 August 2026
What this means. This is when the sources on this page were last read against their originals — statutes, court rules, official schedules — taken from the date this page was built from its sources. It is not the date the page was last edited. Adding a link or fixing a typo does not move it; re-reading the statute does. Law changes without notice, so treat anything time-sensitive as needing a fresh check. Where we get something wrong we publish it at thecusp.app/corrections with the date, what changed, and how long the error was live.

How we can help

Understand the house first. Then talk to someone who gets it.

The house is usually the largest decision in a divorce, and the one people are least ready for. Here is what we do, in the order that makes sense.

1. Start with the facts, free

22 states have automatic orders that freeze both spouses the moment a divorce is filed, barring either one from selling or borrowing against the property. Is yours one of them?

Plain-English guides on what can happen to the house, what an automatic order stops you doing, and how the tax rules decide what a sale is worth. No account and nothing to buy.

2. Know when not to call an agent

Often the right answer is to wait, or to talk to your lawyer or an accountant first. We say so plainly. An agent is the wrong first call if nothing is filed, or if an order restricts what either of you can do with the property.

3. Talk to someone who gets it

When you do need an agent, we introduce you to a local agent who has completed our divorce real estate training and passed its 20-question exam. Before any introduction we check the license with the state regulator (any unresolved disciplinary action is a no), the agent’s closed sales, and a review rating of 4.7 or better. The introduction is free, and you are free to say no.

Ask for an introduction

How we are paid

You pay us nothing. Agents are not charged for the training, the exam or the free resources. If an introduction leads to a closed sale, the agent’s brokerage pays a referral fee out of its own commission, not out of your proceeds. A place on the panel cannot be bought.

General information, not legal or tax advice. The Cusp is not a law firm.