If you’re going through a difficult divorce and trying to figure out what to do about your unwanted real estate, then keep reading this blog post to give you our best suggestions about selling your house while divorcing in Los Angeles…
- During a divorce, assets such as money can be split evenly down the middle, however assets such as homes and cars maintain their value as one piece, fully intact
- Over a prolonged period, with recurring disagreement and communication disconnect between spouses, the house and property condition could decline and impact its value
- If your goal is moving on quickly, consider the ways to sell your house in Los Angeles by discussing with a local direct buyer like Fair Sale Homes
Divorce can be challenging and emotional. Facing each other and communication may be a daily challenge. Yet, in the midst of the difficult situation, you might be like other divorcing couples who own a house and are trying to figure out how to go about selling your house while divorcing in Los Angeles. Here are our best strategies and ideas to help you navigate the real estate portion of your divorce as carefully and efficiently as possible.
Houses In Divorce Can Be Complicated
During a divorce, the two parties seek to split their assets in half. For some assets are liquid (such as money in cash, checking, or savings), it’s very easy to do. For other assets, including real estate, it’s much harder to do because how do you split a house in half? It’s one asset that derives its value from being whole, and it’s usually a structure built on a plot of land, so it’s not going anywhere.
Since cutting the house down the middle isn’t an option, should one party get it or the other? And maybe in some divorces, one party might be invited to take the house only if they can pay for it (which is a massive expense a time that people rarely want to incur such expenses).
Delaying for too long the decision to sell your house can quickly increase the cost and human complexities of owning it, while potentially driving down its value (and both of your equity it the house). If you decide to keep the house and property, consider the following issues that may arise and whether you can reach agreement on these scenarios.
If it is your primary residence, you’ll need to decide which spouse gets to stay there. If that spouse stays there, should they pay the monthly bills associated (e.g. mortgage, property taxes, utilities, landscaping, and unexpected repairs)? And can the spouse that stays in the home feasibly handle those expenses alone?
If it is a rental property, you’ll need to decide which spouse manages the property and who the tenant should call for rent, repairs, and other issues. Also, if there is maintenance or repairs that the tenant requests on the rental property, both spouses need to discuss and agree to those requests quickly. Not having good communication in this case will unsettle the tenant and possibly have them with hold rent for a good reason. In addition, multiple delayed repairs will hurt the property’s condition and therefore its value.
Here’s How To Split The Real Estate Asset
The best way to split the real estate asset is to sell it:
The property itself might have some expenses incurred during the sales process, or there might be outstanding bills, or there might still be a partial outstanding mortgage on the property. So the two divorcing parties should probably just sell the property and direct their attorneys to apply the money earned from the equity to any outstanding debts.
The remaining amount can then be split between each party, with each party getting an agreed-upon percentage (such as 50/50).
But this begs the question — how do you sell the property?
The Fastest Way To Sell A Divorce House
When it comes time to sell, most people think of selling through a real estate agent. Unfortunately there’s a few problems with this:
- the agent will make the owners pay out-of-pocket to fix up the property first — but who pays for that?
- the agent will then list the house, which can take 3-6 months to sell (sometimes longer) — can either party wait that long?
- the agent will then involve both parties in the negotiation with the buyer and there is A LOT of paperwork to shuffle back and forth
This is a costly and time-consuming way to sell, and it can actually make the divorce proceedings so much worse. You are in a divorce and need to sell a house, which means you are thinking, “sell my house fast”.
Fortunately, there’s another way to sell and that’s to sell your house to a real estate buying firm (which is what we do here at Fair Sale Homes). The real estate buying firm will buy your house quickly, for cash, in as-is condition (and as a bonus, there are never any commissions or fees to pay). You don’t have to clean up or fix up the property and the sale can be completed in days, not months, with very little paperwork.
If you’re going through divorce and want to just be done with it and move on with your life, just reach out to us and tell us about the house you want to sell. We specialize in buying divorce houses and we can help you expedite your divorce by buying this house from you.