Expert Roundtable: The House Standoff with Katherine Krysak Frampton, Esq., Brian Mutter, CDLP, Jodi Douglas, CDRE

A 2.75% mortgage rate sounds like a gift until divorce turns it into a trap. We bring you a real case study from Northville, Michigan where the marital home is valued anywhere from $750,000 to $900,000, one spouse refuses to sell, and the other spouse wants their fair share of the equity. With two minor kids and a massive income gap, the question stops being “Who wants the house?” and becomes “What is legally possible, financially feasible, and emotionally smart?”

We sit down with Katherine Frampton, Esq. (Michigan family law attorney), Brian Mutter, CDLP (divorce mortgage specialist), and Jodi Douglas, MS, CDRE™, RCS-D™ to compare how each professional sees the same problem. We talk candidly about what courts often do when couples cannot settle, why refinance deadlines and default protections matter, and the uncomfortable truth that a lender’s appraisal and underwriting rules do not care what your divorce agreement says the home is worth.

You will also hear the lending realities that surprise most people: when child support and spousal support can count as income, the three-year continuance requirement, and why six months of documented receipt can affect your timeline. We close with practical first steps for the first 30 days so you can make a housing decision with eyes wide open, not just hope.

Subscribe, share this with someone navigating a divorce and the marital home, and leave a review so more people can find these divorce financial planning and housing insights.

• To reach out to Katherine Frampton, Esq. https://rubinframpton.com/katherine-frampton/
• To reach out to Brian Mutter, CDLP: https://www.goforwardmortgage.com/contact/
• To reach out to Jodi Douglas, MS, CDRE™, RCS-D™; https://www.howardhanna.com/Agent/Detail/Jodi-Douglas/67640
• To Listen to Our Primer Episode on this topic, click the link below https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-marital-home-in-divorce-experts-weigh-in-sell/id1735150222?i=1000702062111

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Transcript

Welcome And What Rich Means

SPEAKER_06 0:05

Welcome to the Divorce Rich Podcast. I'm your host, Jackie Ressler, and I've been a certified divorce financial analyst for 28 years, helping clients and their attorneys navigate the financial issues in divorce. If you are in the process of or considering divorce, now is the time for you to take a deep breath and give yourself permission to find clarity on the financial decisions that you're facing. The definition of rich is many fold. The best definition that I found is someone who has access to many resources. Along with my guest on this podcast, I am going to make sure that you have access to all the resources you need to make good decisions for yourself.

Sponsor Message For Financial Planning

SPEAKER_06 0:57

Hey, if you're recently divorced or still in the middle of it, you already know life can feel like it's been turned upside down. And let's be honest, the financial part is overwhelming, confusing, and often the last thing that you want to deal with. That's why I want to tell you about the independent wealth management team at the Center for Financial Planning. Their team of certified financial planners specializes in helping people just like you navigate life changes with confidence. Whether it's assessing your new financial circumstances, creating or updating your retirement plan, or helping you adjust to the new normal, they'll work with you to get a clear, customized plan to feel in control and move forward with confidence. So if you're interested in working with a financial planner you can trust to have your best interest in mind, and you're ready to take the next step, visit centerfinplan.com at centerfinplan.com and schedule a conversation. Center for Financial Planning.

SPEAKER_04 2:01

Live your plan.

Disclosure And Sponsorship Details

SPEAKER_04 2:03

Disclosure. Securities offered through Raymond James Financial Services Inc. Member FEMRA, SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through Center for Financial Planning, Inc. Center for Financial Planning Inc. is not a registered broker dealer and is independent of Raymond James Financial Services. Center for Financial Planning was a sponsor of the Divorce Rich Podcast. The Center for Financial Planning and Raymond James are not affiliated with or endorsed by the Divorce Rich Podcast.

Why The Marital Home Gets Messy

SPEAKER_06 2:38

Hi everyone and welcome back to the Divorce Rich Podcast. This is Jackie Ressler, and this is actually a follow-up episode to our most downloaded episode ever, which I am going to link in the show notes to this episode about handling the marital home and divorce. Now, in our first episode on this topic, we went into the details. We dove into the possibilities. Buy one person, buy the other one out, sell the house, split the proceeds, and defer it, kick the can down the road for a later date. In this episode, we're gonna go into an actual case study. And here I have three amazing experts today. I have Catherine Frampton, who is a family law attorney in Michigan and a partner at Reuben and Frampton. And I will have all of our guest contact information in the show notes. I have Brian Mutter, who is a CDLP. He is a mortgage specialist that specializes in divorce cases, and Jody Douglas of Howard Hannah here in Michigan, who is a certified divorce real estate expert. She is a realtor who specializes in divorce. And so we've got a powerhouse team to talk through this case study. And each professional is going to bring their professional lens to this same case. Our goal is a candid, maybe a little bit uncomfortable conversation that clients really don't often get to hear behind what's what happens behind closed doors. So welcome everyone. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

Thanks so much for having me, Jackie.

The Northville Case Study Setup

SPEAKER_00 4:10

This is gonna be fun.

SPEAKER_06 4:11

It is gonna be fun. And I didn't give any of you any time to prep whatsoever. So I'm gonna read the case study out to you. And I wanted to bring this to you as if the client is sitting in front of you on say Tuesday morning and they bring their situation in, your brain starts working. So here's the basic case. We are in Michigan. So I've got a Michigan case here where the couple they live in Northville in Michigan, and they have a home. The marital home is valued anywhere between $750 and $900,000. The wife feels like the house is worth $750,000. She wants to keep the house. And the husband wants her to keep the house or he wants it to be sold and he wants it to be valued at $900,000. So we have an valuation dispute there. Um they there is a mortgage on the home and it's got that unicorn interest rate of $2.75, which we're probably never going to, or if I ever see it again in my lifetime, that would be shocking to me. So we got that amazing interest rate that nobody wants to let go of. Now the wife, she is a she has a full-time job. She makes $45,000 a year and she's pretty much maxed out on her income that she can earn. They've been married for 15 years. Two minor kids, wife feels like the kids must stay in this house. Husband makes $250,000 a year. Their current mortgage payment is so low. It's wow, $1,224. And wife feels like I'm never going to be able to find that in the same school district. She will wants to keep the house and she will not negotiate. She believes that home is worth $750 and she wants it, and that is it. So the core tension here in this case is that wife is emotionally committed to staying in the house. Husband is only one on the mortgage, by the way, legally and financially entitled to his fair share of the equity. The math says she can't afford it. So this might be a case that a CDFA, our divorced financial analyst, was on and showed her, look, we looked at your budget and it does not look affordable, but she does not care. So all of you have sat across from the table from someone like this. And so our question is, okay, what happens next? So I want to start with you, Catherine, because in this scenario,

What Courts Usually Order At Trial

SPEAKER_06 6:40

there's a legal reality that the wife maybe isn't accepting yet. So can you walk us through in this scenario, if the parties ended up going to trial and they couldn't settle, what would what would happen in your experience in this situation? A wife says, I refuse to walk away from the house.

SPEAKER_07 7:00

Well, in my experience, I would say that the courts generally would say, we're gonna list the asset for sale, we're gonna sell it, you're gonna split the proceeds 50-50. Now, obviously, across the board, that doesn't necessarily always happen. Um, but I um would assume it's gonna happen more often than not. It's very unrealistic that the court would award a value to a home and give it to someone, unless it's supported potentially by the remaining of the estate. So if there are significant maybe retirement assets, or let's say it's not in this scenario, but if there was maybe a business evaluation and someone was owed some money from there, maybe they would shift the burden. But in my experience, and especially if we're gonna be talking about in this scenario, then being in Wayne County, I would assume that the house, if it was going to go before any of those judges, that the it would be listed for sale and the proceeds would be split just down the middle. Typically. Of course, maybe the burden could be shifted on if there's other issues in this case, but I'm just gonna assume right now, under these circumstances, that it's a 50-50 division of those assets.

SPEAKER_06 8:15

Do you can you see any scenario where there's a legal mechanism that would let the wife stay in the house if the judge was having a really unusual day in Wayne County?

SPEAKER_07 8:28

I mean, I mean, the way I would walk through it with this client is I would say she's kind of got, we've got three scenarios that we should probably talk about. We should talk about worst case scenario of the house at 900 and what that value is gonna be. Best case is the 750. And then where I think the court would probably lean into is picking some sort of median between those. So I'm assuming one has a 900, $900,000 um appraisal, one has a 750 appraisal. And I'm if we take, you know, the in between of that, we're thinking about like an 825 value. So I would tell her, and that that's kind of like your best case is if we have two competing valuations that we take something along the middle. Sometimes the court may appoint their own appraiser to go and take do an appraisal, and they would maybe take that number. It may not be right in the middle, it may be a little bit to the higher end, a little bit to the lower end. Um, but the court could certainly do that. And then um, if there may be actually a compelling argument. I mean, I don't know what dad's situation is. Depending on the ages of these kids, they it may be compelling to keep them in their school district, depending on where they're going. If they're going to public schools, some of the schools aren't going to allow them to do school of choice to stay where they are, or maybe they'll let the enrollment go for a certain amount of time until they have to transition maybe to the next level of schooling of middle school or high school. So these would be things that we would have to consider. I mean, obviously people stick their feet in the sand and say, I'm not gonna move, I'm not gonna do this, but maybe there could be some ideas to talk about could she stay in the home until maybe that transition period of a child moving to a different school? Is dad willing to say, I'm gonna buy a home in Northville and I'll maintain that address for school purposes? I mean, and I do think the court would take that into consideration because, of course, under the best interest of the children, we, you know, nominal movements for them, you know, during a divorce is always what we want to try to do. Um, but I don't think that necessarily just having those children is going to mean that the court's gonna award her the home. But I mean, I guess the court could potentially look at the bigger picture and see is there room to shift the assets? Is there a way that she could? I'm assuming, and this would probably be something better for Brian to talk about, but is there a way she could do an assumption on this mortgage? You know, I'm not super, I I defer to the experts on those. I don't know the ins and outs of that, but is that something that she could explore? So this would certainly be a conversation that has to be with all of these individuals. And I would probably say I would send her to someone like Jody saying, okay, let's assume you keep the house and you get to a point where you have to sell it down the road. What is that gonna look like for you? What are you taking on insofar as the costs? You know, how old is the roof? What is that? What could that run you? How old are your AC and your and your heat? I mean, these are things that I think a lot of clients just get so emotionally embedded in what they want to do, but they don't look at the bigger picture of let's go through what are the cons what are the worst things that could happen if you take this house over tomorrow on a good and a bad. Um so those are kind of the the way I would step through it. I mean, I've certainly had my fair share of clients that they want to keep it no matter what, even if it puts them into debt. And at the end of the day, that's their decision. But I do think you have to walk through all the all these options and have these different professionals kind of explain their their view as well. Absent, you know, because at the end of the day, I can look at them all day and say, listen, we go to trial. The courts aren't always super creative, right? It's more black and white. So I like to propose my clients, your worst day is that house is sold, and that's it, and there's no and it is what it is. But of course, I mean,

Refinance Deadlines And Default Protections

SPEAKER_07 12:30

there's always wiggle room here or there. It it really just depends. It's case by case.

SPEAKER_06 12:35

Before I move to Brian, I wanna one more quick question for you, Catherine. Let's say that wife convinces judge that she's gonna be able to keep the house, and that a judge orders that she has to refinance. What it what would normally be what how would that what would that normally look like? And can you explain, you know, why a judge would force a refi if the wife is keeping the house?

SPEAKER_07 13:00

Well, certainly, I mean, the argument's going to be that the husband's gonna want some sort of protections, right? You know, we would have to put some sort of protection in there, even if she keeps the house, if she were to default on a payment, it would usually be I've done it a couple different ways. I would say that typically if you default on one or more payments, then the house is immediately listed for sale. When it comes to wanting to get the husband out of it, the main, the main concern I'm usually met with is that then that party is concerned they don't want their name tied with a mortgage because it could assert it could affect them getting their own mortgage as well. So typically what I think, I don't think there's a typical time frame that a judge awards. I guess what I've seen in trial is less than a year or within a year to refinance or otherwise assume the mortgage. And I think in a negotiating standpoint, that's typically where I lean as well. It's usually not longer than a year. And the other thing, and this isn't what we're talking about here today, but obviously we would have to consider too is she getting some sort of spousal support? What's her child support numbers look like? Because maybe that would feed in as well into well, maybe we say, like, she won't take those, you know, a spousal support award while she's in the house. And maybe we can shift that burden that maybe um husband could pay her the mortgage for a couple of months for her. Or there are different creative ways. And again, I don't think that's typically what the courts are gonna do, but um outside of the courts, we can be a little bit more creative. But I would say with the mortgage, the courts are gonna want if they do award it to her, there's gonna be a time frame and there's gonna be mechanisms to protect the husband who is the one that's not gonna stay in the home, but is gonna stay financially tied to it for a period of time. Okay.

SPEAKER_06 14:51

So legally, the wife is maybe on borrowed time if she's gonna stay in the house. She's gonna have absolutely yes. So

Can She Qualify On One Income

SPEAKER_06 15:00

let's talk about whether or not she could even qualify and pull it off financially, because these numbers are kind of brutal that I gave with her income at $45,000. And um, like as Kappa mentioned, there are minor children, so there would be some child support, maybe spousal support, because there is a big difference between wife's income of uh 40 uh 45 and husband's income of 200. But um, let's from Brian, from your perspective, what what would a buyout actually look like for someone earning $45,000 a year? That's what would she actually qualify for?

SPEAKER_00 15:35

Great question. So going back to the beginning of the case study, when you mentioned that the current payment is $1,24, uh, I'm just gonna assume for our purposes that that's all in. That's taxes and insurance also. And I grabbed my calculator and I'm thinking, oh great. If if she can assume it, which is a big if, but if she can assume it, assuming no other debt or moderate other debt, she likely could qualify. Then you mentioned, though, that she's not on the current mortgage. And in my experience, I have a couple of things about assumptions. It's almost always the ideal situation in scenarios like this, assuming that the remaining spouse can qualify. But I will say that in my experience, the lender granting the assumption is the exception to the rule, right? And even in the cases that I've seen them granted, there's there's a lot of strings attached, a lot of hoops to jump through, or they may require a large upfront principal reduction payment. But in this case, if she's not on the existing mortgage, I've never seen a lender let a remaining spouse take over a mortgage that they're not already obligated on, right? So that's the long way of saying I think an assumption is out in this case. Looking forward, yeah, it's it's it's very unlikely that she would qualify at today's rates if she had to take on a new mortgage for this property, right? Especially if she had to borrow not just the principal amount that's remaining, but if she had to take out another chunk of equity to pay him out. In other words, if she's gonna increase the loan amount, it's it's gonna be an uphill challenge. It doesn't mean it's impossible. I'm kind of thinking out loud, like I know the support has already been mentioned. Spousal support obviously could put could really help in this case. When it comes to child support, and I deliberately didn't ask this until now, Jackie. What are the ages of the children? Because this will make a difference from a lending perspective, or it can make a difference.

SPEAKER_06 17:34

Let's say 17 and 12.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

Okay. So from a lending perspective, we there have to be three years of support payments remaining from the date of the closing on the mortgage, right? So typically for a child who's 15, we really can't utilize that support as income because it's not going to continue for three years after, right? So in this case, let's pr presume there's gonna be support for both children. From a lending perspective, the support for only the younger child is gonna be able to be factored into the into the qualifying income. So yeah, so that those things make it challenging, again, on a 45,000 a year income, but like you mentioned, Jackie, a big question mark is the amount of support that we would get from the from the husband, right?

SPEAKER_06 18:27

So would spousal support then have to run for at least three years?

SPEAKER_00 18:32

Yes, spousal support would have to run for three years. Not only that, this is the kind of thing that I like everybody to be aware of is whenever we're using support income to qualify, child support or spousal support, the the the client, the borrower, can't utilize that as qualifying income until we've documented six months receipt of it. And so it's always super helpful for folks to know so that they can kind of approach these things with eyes wide open and know that if we do need support to make this happen, support income, we're gonna have a six-month runway. Now, in some cases, we can we can ask the judge for temporary orders to get the support uh order rolling in the meantime while the rest of the settlement is ironed out and before the judgment is entered. That's helpful just from a timeline perspective, because now we don't have to wait 180 days from the date of judgment entry. We can start that six-month uh countdown prior to that. So, from a support perspective, always something to be mindful of is that you know, we have a three-year continuation on the back end and we we can't utilize them until we can show a six-month receipt on the front end.

SPEAKER_06 19:38

Okay. So are there what

Support Income Rules Lenders Require

SPEAKER_06 19:40

about tradition are there any non-traditional lending products that that could be used? I actually had a case yesterday where the client mentioned to me that her uh her uh new financial advisor, who was trying to woo her to manage her assets, told her that she should get a loan through her asset portfolio. So a loan directly through the uh the brokerage company.

SPEAKER_00 20:05

So that's a good question. From a so I'm just I'm just speaking, so we'll kind of go two ways with this. From a from the products that that that my firm works with, we have some non-traditional mortgage options, but just based on what we know about this case study, it likely wouldn't apply, right? Uh in other words, if she's $45,000 a year on a salary, there's really not a lot creative we can do with that. I I have another case where I have a client uh going through a divorce, he owns a construction business. Now, on paper, if you look at his tax returns every year, he makes next to no money. But we're able to get him qualified because we're able to use, we have some lenders that where you don't qualify on tax returns or W-2s, you qualify on uh money in and out or revenue into your bank statements, right? But again, that's really more built for business owners. From a conventional loan perspective, in certain cases, we can use there's something called asset depletion where we can essentially we can utilize if a client has a large balance in a retirement account, we can leverage that as income. So that's one way that can be done. Uh the more favorable calculation, in other words, where the qualifying income is considered higher this way than the asset depletion, probably doesn't apply in the in in the case study here. But if a client is old enough to receive distributions from a retirement account, we can set up a monthly distribution. And as long as that asset contains a balance to support three years of distribution at the amount we've shown, then we can utilize that as income. So it's so in a lot of divorce cases, that's actually very useful to know, and it's it's a lever we can pull in some cases. In this case, probably not applicable.

SPEAKER_06 21:58

Okay.

unknown 21:59

So

SPEAKER_06 22:00

Before we turn to Jody, I have one more quick question for you, Brian. Catherine brought up that, and I think this is a valid point, and this is something that I hear all the time in cases, husband doesn't want to stand alone because so this is amazing, right? A very creative idea would be if it's determined that it's in the best interest of voice to stay in the house, that husband makes the mortgage payment, like Catherine said. She is a kind of she's the kind of attorney who thinks outside the box because not every attorney would even think about that idea. But let's say that he's gonna make the mortgage payment or he's gonna um, you know, and they're gonna work that out in some in some you know manner. Do you feel like, I mean, is there a problem with him qualifying for a new mortgage with the existing mortgage still in his name? Because I hear conflicting information about that. So can you clarify that for us?

SPEAKER_00 22:53

That's a great question. So I'll give you the and the rule, if you will, and then I'll tell you in this case, right? Okay. Generally speaking, if again, in this assumption, wife is not on the mortgage, she's not obligated, he's the only person on the note. In a situation like that, even if the wife were paying, were making the mortgage payment in the meantime, there's no amount of time that we can document the wife having made those payments that would absolve that liability from a future debt-to-income ratio calculation. In other words, if he wanted to qualify for a new mortgage, it doesn't matter how long we can show that the wife is going to make in payments, he's obligated on that loan. She's not, he's that's always going to be included in a debt-to-income ratio on future financing, right?

SPEAKER_06 23:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:40

I make that distinction because if the if they were on the loan jointly and we could document that the wife had been making payments for 12 months, in some cases we have an argument to underwriting to omit the liability, right? Because she is obligated, and we can document that payments for 12 months have been coming from her. And just to be clear, it has to be an account man account in her name only. It can't be like a joint post-divorce account. So so that is one. And in this case, that's the rule, right? In this case, with his income of $250k a year, that's a pretty strong income. So it's likely that it's possible that he could still qualify for future financing, but again, not because the current mortgage is somehow out of the equation, if you will, but just by the virtue of the fact that his income is so strong that he may be able to overcome the carrying the two mortgage payments.

Appraisals Trump The Divorce Agreement

SPEAKER_00 24:40

Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_06 24:41

It does. That's different than what I have heard in the past. So I thought that there was some language that we could include in the settlement agreement that the mortgage company would look at and say, okay, well, that's not gonna count because wife is.

SPEAKER_00 24:55

Yeah, he is legally obligated to that debt. So and one other thing I wanted to point out regarding the the whole the disputed home value, right? This is one of those things where I understand parties are gonna do what they choose, but from a lending perspective, I always have to interject. Like in a situation where we have this disputed value, 750 or 900k, if if let's pretend that the settlement comes out, that the wife somehow is gonna be able to stay, and she is to take what's called half the equity of the home and pay it and uh in a refinance and pay it out to the husband. What I see sometimes where we get into trouble is if the divorce spells out the value of the home and or as a result of the amount of equity that is due to be paid, that can be a real challenge because when it comes time for the lender to do the refinance, they're not gonna care what value the court gave the property. They're not gonna care how much equity was demanded to be taken out. In other words, the the lender's going to lend based on the appraisal performed by the appraisal company the lender uses, right? Based on that value, in some cases, we may if that value comes in short, we may not be able to access sufficient funds to pay off whatever was in the divorce was ordered by the divorce. So it's another one of these eyes wide open things. I like I just like folks to know, you know, it's just because the divorce ascribes a value to the home and an amount to be paid out by way of a refinance

Selling Under Conflict And Tax Traps

SPEAKER_00 26:30

to settle up any equity doesn't mean that the lender's going to comport with that. The lender's going to go according to whatever their appraisal says and what the guidelines allow from there with respect to how much cash can be pulled out.

SPEAKER_06 26:42

Wow. Okay, that's a little bit scary. That information. So I mean, I think a lot of these emphasize why it's so important to have a full team like this, talking through with clients all the options. So let's move to you, Jody. You've been sitting patiently listening to this conversation. And we've had this conversation before so many times on clients that we work with jointly. So you've seen clients sacrifice a better financial outcome to stay in the house. I know you have because I know that we've had mutual clients this way. Let's say that in this scenario, you know, everyone's been advising them, you know, they, but they they decide that wife is going to buy out husband's interest by hoping she qualifies for a mortgage. What would you, what's the conversation that you would have with that client when the numbers are this stark? Because the numbers in this case are pretty stark. Uh, let's say that, you know, I've been there and I looked at the the child support and the spousal support, and it does not seem to me as a financial advisor that this is affordable. So you specialize in divorce real estate. How would you, what's the conversation that you have with this client?

SPEAKER_01 31:42

Do you hear my stuff?

SPEAKER_03 32:01

Yeah. Right. I can give you a person.

SPEAKER_01 32:48

She please sound wow. Can I do that?

SPEAKER_03 33:44

Right. No. Right. Right.

SPEAKER_06 34:11

I think adding one more thing onto that, a lot of let's say this house is worth $900, maybe they bought it for $400. And if they were married and sold the house, they could exclude up to $500,000 of capital gain or profit. But if they're single and they got the house, now they can only exclude $250,000. And so now there might be a capital gain tax deducted on top of a closing cost and commission and whatever it costs to get the code to get the house ready for sale, too. Jody, let's take a different tactic. Let's say that this case went in front of a judge and the judge said, This house is being sold. Now you have a very contentious situation where one person thinks the house is valued at this, the other person thinks it's valued at this, and wife does not want to sell the house. Now you specialize in divorce real estate. How is your role different than a standard listing agent? And why would it matter in a contested situation like this?

SPEAKER_01 35:07

So the point is if you move my head as age and put it once up to your book. So you think anything found is a five screen up to stuff like that. Okay, but okay.

SPEAKER_03 36:03

Yeah, the change are very hard to pay and ask you up.

SPEAKER_01 36:29

Go with the seating QA to go to the colour.

SPEAKER_06 38:04

Okay, so this is a a real difference between your training and someone who's a regular listing agent that doesn't have this background.

Finding Stability Without Keeping The House

SPEAKER_06 39:00

So what I'm really hearing is that the wife holding out is a it's a legal problem, maybe. Uh, could be a financial time bomb in terms of when you know to get the husband paid out if she's gonna do a refi. And then we have that emotional decision that Jody's bringing up that's kind of dressed up like it's a practical decision, but it's emotional. So let's bring this back to the table together. And I'm gonna bring it to all of you. Is there a scenario where wife gets what she wants? So we talked about Northville. The schools in Northvell, we all work in this community, are a big deal to the people that are currently living. They want to stay in that specific school district. Is there a scenario here where she gets the stability that she wants? There's a sense of continuity, maybe, you know, without the house? Or do we is there a creative way that we can, and I think all three of you have alluded to different creative ways, but what would be the path to us finding something creative? Or do we just honestly have to say that there isn't a way for her to get the things that she wants?

SPEAKER_07 40:10

I mean, one thing that I would typically encourage a client to do, and I think um recently did this on a case where my client ultimately really wanted the home, was I encouraged her also to go look at other houses, go look at other options because sometimes I think you get so married to your house and your comfort level, you don't even realize that there might be something more that they may love, or especially when children are involved, sometimes you have to just help them understand you can make this fun for the kids too. Like, oh, you're gonna get a new bedroom, a new this. And I mean, I guess that's where I would lean in with probably sending the client both to Jody and Brian, or having Jody set her up with someone to look at houses if she's gonna be, you know, the person selling the house and say, listen, why don't we see what's out there too? Because that's a whole other question. What could she even what's out there that she could afford? And also a lot of people don't love the idea, but sometimes I encourage people to look into renting. Sometimes, like six months to a year, like get your feet stable underneath you and see what your life is going to look like. Um, because and Jackie, you and I run to this run into this a lot. Majority of these clients just do not think outside the box with expenses. What does life really cost you? They don't think about, well, how much is your hair? How much is your kids' hair? How much are prescriptions? How much is if you want to get your nails done? Like, what is your budget? And and that circles back too to you know what we were saying collectively between Joni and I is what does it cost to keep your house? What are the sprinklers in your home? What's your water bill? What is maintenance? Who's gonna cut the lawn? Like, is this wife gonna take that on, or is she gonna have you know $40 a week now in lawn maintenance and whatnot? So there's a lot more that I think all of us have to sit down with these parties and our clients and think about. It's not just, I want the house and I'm gonna make it work. Like and maybe they and some people do at the end of the day say that, but um, it is interesting that they when you give them that task of that real budget, not just rough numbers, like really go through and look at what it looks like. I mean, it it's eye-opening. And I guess that's a question for Jody. If you're in your role in your scope as like you're gonna sell it for the parties, so you typically would then suggest both parties get their own realtor to get their own property post-selling the marital home, correct?

SPEAKER_03 42:51

Okay, and then is there any language? I'll be here.

SPEAKER_07 45:38

I have a question for Brian

When A Reverse Mortgage Can Help

SPEAKER_07 45:40

though, quickly too, because this is another idea, and I don't know if this is a bad idea. Do you ever, and I don't think it would be for these parties because I doubt they're age qualifiers, but would is there ever a world where you suggest people to do a reverse mortgage?

SPEAKER_00 45:54

Yes.

SPEAKER_07 45:54

I love this question.

SPEAKER_00 45:56

Yes. The short answer is yes. It it obviously, you know, the the parties have to be over 55, but they this yes, that we we we do occasionally recommend them. I I don't my company doesn't do reverse mortgages. I refer those out, but in some cases that actually makes sense.

SPEAKER_06 46:11

And I and I I love this topic because I think that it's not used and reverse mortgages get a bad rap. And I have a I'd like to go into a deeper dive on that topic, but with the reverse mortgage, you can keep an older person in their house, still get a payout for the other spouse in cash. And you know, the you can do all kinds of creative things, and they're all, you know, they're backed by the government. So they're not in there so many risk protection measures in place for them. They're not like the old reverse mortgages. So I love that question. I want to finish up with like lightning round for a question for each of you.

First 30 Days Housing Action Steps

SPEAKER_06 46:50

What is the one thing that you think every divorcing homeowner should do like in the first 30 days? Or when they, you know, they first decide that they might, they might not, they not they're not sure what they want to do with the house. Catherine, what do you what would you say?

SPEAKER_07 47:06

Um primarily what I'd like to have people do right away is get a realtor in the home to get an idea for what a realtor thinks needs to be done just on the surface base, if they were gonna list. So kind of like a checklist of prep. I know it's not all inclusive, but it's just kind of a cursory. And typically that doesn't cost them any out-of-pocket money. So on the onset, I'm not trying to make them go spend thousands of dollars, but I'd like them to get an idea to get someone in the home to put their eyes on it, not their friend, not you know, their neighbor who just sold their house and what they think and what they think. I always suggest get somebody a third party, neither of you know, bring that person in and let them look at the home. I think that's always a good step to start. Then from there, I think those people typically will ask the questions related to the ages of things, and and that starts the process of everyone kind of thinking, oh, I didn't think about that, or oh, I would have to do this. You know, some people have broken things in their home they just haven't dealt with for years. Well, what's that cost going to be to do that? So I think that puts it into perspective. I have, and I think Jody was brilliant in saying, get an inspection done, because I recently have been running into that with these types of cases where they need to get those done because that's if they're gonna assume that home even down the road, that's a big what if, especially a certain case of mine. The husband did a lot of contracting on his own in the house. Well, there was mold, there was mold remediation that needed to be done. That's a lot of things that people on the surface you can paint over, you won't see it. So typically, I'll start with that cursory walkthrough, get everyone's heads kind of thinking in that game. And then if we need to, I haven't done it enough, but I really do like the idea of getting an inspector in there to really dig deep because I think you have to know that before you even start talking about trying to keep it and the numbers that go with it.

SPEAKER_06 49:09

Fantastic. What about you, Brian?

SPEAKER_00 49:13

Um, so uh just just to piggyback on that, I fully agree in getting an inspection because one of the things I I tell my clients, just regular homeowners, not experiencing divorce, is it's exciting you own a home. It's your it's your home, but you also own a building. And the building has to get taken care of. It's it's it's the less less sexy part of owning a house, but it's it's the fact. So, like we've all talked about, the house is a big emotional anchor in these cases, and it's understandable, but it's also a can be a very practical source of challenges, right? You know, just from my view, of course, from my perspective, I think the most important thing from a housing perspective is for folks considering divorce to meet with someone like me just to get what I call like a needs analysis or a feasibility analysis. In other words, you know, especially like in our case study, there are a ton of folks with these rates and the twos and threes and fours. And buying, financing a house today, that picture looks a lot different than it did 2020 to 2023, right? And and in any case, no matter what the rate environment was, you know, that the marital home or the marital mortgage was taken in, you know, qual most married couples qualify for their home as with two incomes. Post-divorce, that changes to one income. So, in other words, you know, it's from a needs perspective, like in a case like this, I would encourage the woman, I would sit down, we would understand as much as I can about current income, potential income. And then if she wanted to keep the house, we essentially could look at what would that payment look like, and then we could work backwards to say, okay, to make this happen, the support amount would have to be in this ballpark, right? And the other side of that is uh if if they're looking about to you know to move on to the marital home, well, just the same. It's the same as, you know, when a 25-year-old buys their first home. They need to know what they can afford. And so all that starts with, you know, like a like I said, needs analysis or a feasibility analysis to see what is housing expense and affordability and feasibility look like going forward.

SPEAKER_03 51:21

Awesome. All right, Jody, what about you?

SPEAKER_01 52:00

So it's coming from civilian tasks to come in for you. Um the value gives you the child, king in chant at any season and decide is given you to me, good pieces.

SPEAKER_06 54:14

Okay, awesome. Well, I personally love working with all three of you, and I'm lucky that I get to work with all three of you. I learned some things today from the three of you that I had not heard before. So I know this is going to be really valuable to all of our listeners. Thank you all for coming on and being a guest and let our listeners get a peek into the part that they maybe don't participate in that goes on behind closed doors.

Final Thanks And Listener Call To Share

SPEAKER_06 54:40

So I so appreciate all of you and thank you again. Thank you, Jackie.

SPEAKER_00 54:45

Thanks so much for having us, Jackie.

SPEAKER_05 54:48

When you're facing divorce, you deserve an advocate who understands what you're going through and who's dedicated to protecting your future. At dawn, divorce attorneys for women. Our mission is simple: to help women move forward with clarity, confidence, and strong legal guidance. Whether you're just starting the process or feeling overwhelmed by what comes next, our team is here to support you every step of the way. Schedule a free consultation today and learn how we can help you take back control of your life. Visit women's rights.com slash free consultation video to get started.

SPEAKER_06 55:34

Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to listen to Divorce Rich Podcast. If you like this podcast, please follow us on Apple or anywhere that you download podcasts and share this link with any friends or family that you think might benefit from this picture.