Are you planning to get a divorce from your spouse, but own a home together? One of the big questions you'll likely have is what happens to that house with a mortgage. You can't split the home, and you both likely put a lot of equity into it leading up to this point in your relationship. Here are some common questions about dealing with your home.

What Do You Do If Nobody Wants To Keep The Home?

The easiest situation when it comes to handling your home will be if neither person wants to keep it. The house may simply be too big and not be practical to maintain on a single income, or the house brings back too many memories of the marriage and you both would rather move on. In this situation, you can sell the home and split the profit between you and your spouse as defined by the terms of your divorce settlement. This could mean splitting the profits down the middle, or a split divided on other factors. This can give each person a good chunk of money to use as a down payment on a smaller home or to put into savings if they decide to rent an apartment.

What Happens If You Keep The Home With A Mortgage?

Things get a bit confusing when one person wants to keep the home, but there is an existing mortgage on the home. A solution to this problem will be to refinance the home so that one person can buy out the other person's equity. The mortgage process would start over with only one person's name associated with it, so the person not keeping the home does not have to worry about missed payments. The person that keeps the home will start over with a new mortgage, but will be able to put a significant portion of the refinance amount towards the home's equity. While this is the more fair option of the two, it does have some financial consequences that may not be desired.

For example, it may not be ideal to refinance due to interest rates or how far along the mortgage is. It may be worth coming up with an agreement between both spouses as to how the remainder of the mortgage will be paid off since both names will still be on the mortgage. Sometimes concessions are made where the spouse not keeping the house receives more assets that are the equivalent of their portion of the house. For more information, contact a divorce lawyer.