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The Rights of a House

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Awayne

Junior Member
My state is Delaware

On April 20th my wife and I separated.
On July 28th she moved out of the house (Furniture and all).
Only August 5th I filed for Divorce (The divorce is still not 100% complete.)

I recently started dating someone. My soon to be ex-wife has now "banned" me from having guests over to "our" house. She has not lived there since July, but she will occasionaly sleep over just to "check up on me"...

My question is even though her name is still on the title does she have legal right to 'ban' me from having certain people over to the house? Can I change the locks w/o telling her? She has started taking stuff from me which is why I am asking.

Thanks for any advice.
Anthony
 


mistoffolees

Senior Member
My state is Delaware

On April 20th my wife and I separated.
On July 28th she moved out of the house (Furniture and all).
Only August 5th I filed for Divorce (The divorce is still not 100% complete.)

I recently started dating someone. My soon to be ex-wife has now "banned" me from having guests over to "our" house. She has not lived there since July, but she will occasionaly sleep over just to "check up on me"...

My question is even though her name is still on the title does she have legal right to 'ban' me from having certain people over to the house? Can I change the locks w/o telling her? She has started taking stuff from me which is why I am asking.

Thanks for any advice.
Anthony
Based on what you described, it's as much her house as it is yours (unless you purchased it with non-marital funds). You can not change the locks (technically, you can, but she can hire a locksmith to open the door and change them so you can't get in, so it's not a winning situation.

In order for it to become 'your' house rather than both of yours, you'll need to petition the court for temporary possession of the house until the divorce is final. Since she voluntarily moved out, that shouldn't be too hard. Once you have a court order for possession, she can no longer come into the house without your permission.

As for ordering you not to have someone else there, there are a couple of issues:
1. If there are kids involved, she can ask the court to order that there be no overnight guests of the opposite sex when the kids are spending the night. This is ordered fairly routinely when one party asks.
2. Until the divorce is final, you are still married. I haven't looked up DE laws, but in some states, it could affect you in terms of alimony (if applicable) when the divorce is finalized.
 

Awayne

Junior Member
Based on what you described, it's as much her house as it is yours (unless you purchased it with non-marital funds). You can not change the locks (technically, you can, but she can hire a locksmith to open the door and change them so you can't get in, so it's not a winning situation.

In order for it to become 'your' house rather than both of yours, you'll need to petition the court for temporary possession of the house until the divorce is final. Since she voluntarily moved out, that shouldn't be too hard. Once you have a court order for possession, she can no longer come into the house without your permission.

As for ordering you not to have someone else there, there are a couple of issues:
1. If there are kids involved, she can ask the court to order that there be no overnight guests of the opposite sex when the kids are spending the night. This is ordered fairly routinely when one party asks.
2. Until the divorce is final, you are still married. I haven't looked up DE laws, but in some states, it could affect you in terms of alimony (if applicable) when the divorce is finalized.
Thanks for the information... I have not bought her out or anything. The house is on the market and I am paying all the bills, as I have always done. Its amazing that she still have the rights to it after she abondend it... This place can't sell soon enough. I just want to get on with my life.
 

LdiJ

Senior Member
Thanks for the information... I have not bought her out or anything. The house is on the market and I am paying all the bills, as I have always done. Its amazing that she still have the rights to it after she abondend it... This place can't sell soon enough. I just want to get on with my life.
Look at it from purely the perspective of property ownership.

Anyone who has partial ownership of an asset, retains that ownership whether they use/live in that property/asset or not.

In a divorce, a judge can give exclusive use of an asset to one of the parties, but until a judge does, rights cannot be limited.
 

mistoffolees

Senior Member
Thanks for the information... I have not bought her out or anything. The house is on the market and I am paying all the bills, as I have always done. Its amazing that she still have the rights to it after she abondend it... This place can't sell soon enough. I just want to get on with my life.
It doesn't work that way. While you may be paying the bills, are you using marital assets to do so? Probably. And did she 'abandon' the house or did she move out to avoid conflict because the two of you aren't getting along? Did she perhaps take a lower level job (or no job) in order to support your career (as an example)?

You are a married couple. You each will get 50% of the marital value of the asset because the court doesn't want to get into the position of trying to figure out who contributed more to a marriage (is staying at home to take care of children and giving up a career worth more than working 40 hours per week at a dead end job? Who knows?). In some states (I haven't looked up whether DE is one of them), the judge can vary from the 50:50 rule, but they generally don't vary much from that rule and only with good reason. Her moving out won't be a good enough reason.
 

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