Selling a House During a Divorce: What You Need to Know

Divorce settlements often include the sale of the family home. Even in the best of circumstances, selling a house as part of a Bucks County divorce requires the juggling of various factors and multiple experts and can be stressful, but divorce complicates the process. You want to find experts who are qualified to help you through the unique issues associated with selling a home as part of a divorce. 

Most critically, you should choose a real estate agent who is an expert in divorce-settlement home sales. Yes, there are agents who specialize in this area. This is not the time for “sale by owner.” You need a neutral third party, an expert you can defer to. It’s important to choose a person you both agree upon – or whom your attorneys agree upon – so that neither spouse feels there is a bias towards the wishes of the other spouse. 

Work out important details with your attorney or mediator that will affect the sale, and communicate them to your real estate agent. Issues to discuss include:

• What is your priority in the sale: getting top dollar or getting a quick settlement? Do you want to delay settling with a buyer until you’ve found a replacement home?
• Who will represent the couple with the agent? Does one spouse have signing and decision-making authority, do both, or will decisions go through the attorneys?
• What reason will be given to potential buyers for selling the house? Most agents who handle divorce sales recommend a neutral statement such as “the family is downsizing.”
• How will upgrades, repairs, and other necessary steps to prepare the house for sale be handled? Who will pay for them, and how will they be compensated after the sale?
• How will price negotiation be handled? 

You’ll need to engage an appraiser for a pre-listing appraisal, so that you, your spouse, and your mediators or attorneys can determine an appropriate value as part of the settlement. The appraisal will include any improvements you have already made, but you may want to make additional improvements that will increase the house’s value. 

Whenever a house is being sold, there are inevitably things that can or should be done to make it more marketable. The added cost can be stressful for any couple, which is why it’s even more important to choose an impartial agent experienced with divorce sales whose advice you can trust.

Inevitable steps such as cleaning, decluttering, and doing minor fix-ups such as painting can often be completed with little or no cost. Most agents also recommend improving “curb appeal” by repairing and/or updating the home’s exterior as well as the landscaping. “Staging” the home can also improve salability. Staging may seem artificial, and it may not feel like “your” home anymore, but that’s the goal – you want buyers to imagine the home as theirs. 

That said, it’s important for someone to continue to live in the house during the selling process, because abandoned houses somehow look abandoned, and they do not sell as well. 

Beware of your emotions; frequently when the right buyer comes along and a reasonable offer has been made, emotions rise, memories invade, and you may hesitate to proceed with the sale. If it’s a good offer, don’t let that happen. You will always have your memories. Try to remember that it’s time to make new memories somewhere else and pass the house on to someone who can make new memories there.

As experts in mediation and collaborative law, we at the Law Office and Mediation Services of Elissa C. Goldberg, LLC can help walk you through your divorce process with as little stress as possible while benefiting you and your family. Call us to see how we can help you through every aspect of your divorce and settlement.