subject: Who Gets The House In An Orlando Divorce? [print this page] If you and your spouse are ending your marriage and you own a house together, one of the most contentious issues of your divorce may involve deciding who gets to keep the family home. This decision can be made by you and your spouse working together to create a divorce agreement or it can be made with the help of a mediator or a judge.
While many people have a strong emotional investment in their home, a marital home is considered to be just one of many types of marital property that need to be divided during divorce proceedings. If you are not able to come to an agreement with your spouse about how to divide up your marital assets, then a judge will use Floridas equitable distribution rules in order to determine who should get the family home. This means that the court will look at what is fair and right for the parties given the length of the marriage, the child custody situation and other relevant factors.
Although equitable distribution doesnt mean each spouse gets an equal share of marital assets, typically the court will not give one spouse everything and the other nothing. This means that if one of the spouses is awarded the marital home, the other may get a larger percentage of other assets in order to make the distribution of marital property during the divorce fairer. In some cases, for example, one spouse will essentially buy the other spouse out of the home by giving up a larger portion of the money that the couple has together.
In other instances, if the marital home is the only significant shared asset of value and neither spouse can afford to buy the other out, then the home may need to be sold during a divorce proceeding.
When a judge is asked to make a decision on what happens to the marital home, that decision will become binding on the parties involved in the divorce. In many cases, a divorcing couple doesnt necessarily want a judge to be the one to decide what happens to their shared house. Not only is it more expensive to litigate the division of assets and property (such as the home) in front of a judge, but there is also a good chance that neither spouse will end up happy with what the judge decides.
If you want more control over what happens to your house in an Orlando divorce, and if you simply want an easier and less expensive divorce in general, then you may wish to consider working with an Orlando divorce lawyer to help you come to a divorce agreement outside of court. Your Orlando divorce lawyer and the attorney representing your spouse can work together with you and your ex to try to come to a divorce settlement agreement that deals with the issues in your divorce. If you and your spouse are able to agree, then the court can just sign off and make the settlement legal. This gives you much more of a say in what happens and means that you and your spouse can each walk away with what is most important to you.
