You and your spouse put a lot of time and money into your home. Today, it’s worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. You don’t care about the money as much as you care about the property, though. You have raised your children here and love the way it looks. It’s a place where you feel comfortable.
You’d like to keep the property, but your spouse wants to sell it. He is arguing that you won’t be able to buy his share, but you know that you can get the funds. The bigger question is if you can afford to maintain the home’s expenses after the divorce.
Losing a second income can have a serious impact on your ability to cover the costs associated with maintaining such a large lot and home. The mortgage will already set you back a few thousand dollars each month, so it may be hard to manage that along with utilities and other responsibilities.
It’s important for you to sit down and work out a budget for your life after divorce. Look at how much money you have coming in and how much your expenses would be. Are you seeing that you’ll be short? Are you able to make ends meet (but just barely)?
You may need to refinance the home and to put it into your own name as well, so when you do that, you’ll want to look at the new monthly payments, interest and other fees and adjustments that could affect you.
Keeping your marital home may be the goal, but you should be realistic. Check your budget, and you’ll see if it’s a good idea to keep the home or sell it on to someone else.