My ex and I are up for our one year sepertion in february. All of the items outlined in our seperation agreement have been executed EXCEPT she wanted to keep the house that we purchased as marital property. In sepertion agreement I signed a quit claim deed for the property so she could refinance and she was to assume sole responsibility for the house. Judge signed this agreement. If she was unable to refinance then she was supposed to sign the deed back into my name jointly again and we were to put the house on the market or face foreclusure together on it if it came to that. That was 11 months ago and now I find out that not only has she not made a payment on the house since then but also that she has not obtained a refinance so the mortgage is still in my name but not the property. She has not put the house on the market or tried to sign it back into my name jointly.
My questions are this:
1- Can I still file for divorce at the end of the month if this has not been handled or do all items in the seperation agreement have to be resolved before the judge will grant the divorce decree?
2- What legal recourse do I have or what can I do here? This was signed out of my name per the judge and now its trashing my credit, the credit bureaus will not relese me from this until the mortgage is resolved.
3- any way to get this documented with a judge so I can clear my credit?
- (A) As long as there is a validly executed separation agreement that covers all property then you can file for divorce without affecting your property rights. The separation agreement will still be enforceable.
- (A) You can sue her for specific performance to either obtain a new loan, or sign the property back to you.
- (A) The credit bureaus don’t care. Your name is on the loan and that is the end of the story as far as they are concerned, but there may be a clause in the separation agreement that requires her to indemnify you against any damages.
Thank you for the reply.
I’m not completely clear however regarding the divorce. Can I still file for divorce when the one year seperation is done then or does this issue have to be resolved first?
One other follow up question that has come up now as well…obviously the house was supposed to be out of my name by now but it is not…so assuming that this would be handled by now we did NOT put anything about tax credits in our seperation paperwork in regards to the house. The first 3 payments were made for 2011 by me out of our joint marital checking account before we seperated. She has not made a payment since that time. In regards to taxes who should get to claim the mortgage interest, mortgage insurance and property taxes for 2011 that are on the tax forms? Do I get this, does she get this or do we split that credit 50/50 since these funds were paid early in the year with marital funds?
Thanks again!
-Desperate in Raleigh