My attorney (I’m going through a divorce even as we speak) has told me basically what most folks seem to be saying here:
If I wanted to keep the house (I don’t), my ex could sign a quit claim on it. That would leave me responsible for payments, insurance, etc, EXCEPT in the case of default. If I were to default, the mortgage holder, who could care less about the quit claim, would come after both of us. If they won a suit against him and he were forced to pay off my defaulted mortgage, his only recourse would be to then sue me for the money. He’d most likely win, but it’d be a pain in the ass for all involved.
We’re stuck in a different situation: No one wants the house, no one can afford it, and we’ll probably lose money on it when and if we are able to sell it.
Good luck, sauron. Thank goodness this didn’t affect your ability to get your house with TLATA28.
I kept the house. We filed a quit claim deed and he was taken off the deed. I was told (like others here) that there was no way he could be taken off the mortgage unless I refinaced. Being a vindictive bitch myself (but for good reasons), I was none too upset with this.
I did have a problem where the post office was forwarding all mortgage stuff to his new address because they wouldn’t take his name off the paperwork. Once I convinced the bank to change the order of names on the mortgage, everything was fine.
I think your problem is with your attorney. He should have made her refinance, or sell. Of course, IINAL and I’m sure divorce laws vary from state to state.
Oh, I should mention that two years post divorce, my ex came crawling because he and the bimbo he left me for wanted to by a house and couldn’t qualify as long as he was still on the mortgage. He wanted me to refinance or sell. As he wasn’t too concern with how I was going to pay the bills when he ran out with me holding the bag, I wasn’t too eager to do him any favors. I did refinance about a year or two after that, when I qualified on my own (I wouldn’t have when he asked) and interest rates were favorable to refinance. He tried everything to get off that mortgage before he called me, and he didn’t until the day I paid it off for a new one.
For what it’s worth, IAAL and it seems to me that the bank is probably right that you’re on the hook. It seems to me that if the bank was not a party to the divorce proceeding, neither the court nor your ex-wife had the ability to release your obligations to the bank.
The Bill Gates example above captures things pretty well.
It does seem wrong that the bank folks were unwilling to send you the assumption papers.
Did you start playing around towards the end? Just curious.
