Divorce in NY, Paren'ts house on the line?

[MikeRahman]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? New York.

Hi, I've been married since Oct, 2011. My wife and I have been having issues for about 6 months now. My parents refinanced the house in my name in 2008 or so. I have never made a payment on the house, my parent's joint bank account has been auto-debit to the mortgage from before they even refinanced the house in my name. My wife owns her own business and she's had it for about 3 years now. Nonetheless, I don't care much about gaining anything from her, but I suspect she might be after my parents house. Any concerns i should have? I believe she makes more money than me also or pretty close to the same amount of income. And we do not own any property together and only have one joint account we share for expenses,

- m

 

[Isis1]

who's name is on the dded for the house?

 

[Isis1]

whose name is on the deed for the house?

sorry about the spelling errors prior. this thing won't let me edit.

 

[Antigone*]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? New York.

Hi, I've been married since Oct, 2011. My wife and I have been having issues for about 6 months now. My parents refinanced the house in my name in 2008 or so. I have never made a payment on the house, my parent's joint bank account has been auto-debit to the mortgage from before they even refinanced the house in my name. My wife owns her own business and she's had it for about 3 years now. Nonetheless, I don't care much about gaining anything from her, but I suspect she might be after my parents house. Any concerns i should have? I believe she makes more money than me also or pretty close to the same amount of income. And we do not own any property together and only have one joint account we share for expenses,

- m

So you came into the marriage owning the property? Did you make any capital improvements with marital funds after getting married?

 

[MikeRahman]

My name is on the deed of the house. The refinanced loan is in my name also. And no, capital improvements using marital funds. It's easy to see that the mortgage is being paid via my mother and father's bank account for years now and even after I've been married.

 

[MikeRahman]

How about my savings account also before i married her i had about 50k, she had about 30k. How does that typically work?

Again, more concerned about the house than anything else but figured i'd throw that out there.

 

[ecmst12]

Even if you'd been paying the house payment, there probably wouldn't be any marital equity accrued in a little over a year. But since you haven't been, I don't see any way this house is NOT separate property.

 

[Bali Hai]

Even if you'd been paying the house payment, there probably wouldn't be any marital equity accrued in a little over a year. But since you haven't been, I don't see any way this house is NOT separate property.

Along with the $50k he brought into the marriage?

 

[ecmst12]

I intentionally did not address the savings account.

 

[LdiJ]

How about my savings account also before i married her i had about 50k, she had about 30k. How does that typically work?

Again, more concerned about the house than anything else but figured i'd throw that out there.

Again, its not very likely at all that there is any marital equity in the home therefore if you had to pay her out anything for home equity it would be peanuts. Marital equity would be equity accrued during the marriage. Your marriage has been a very short one.

As far as the savings are concerned, as long as both of you have kept your savings separate, and haven't made lots of transactions in and out of savings that would be difficult to track, each of your premarital savings would also still be separate property. Anything added since the marriage however could be subject to division. With such a short marriage, again, that's unlikely to be huge numbers.

Best case scenario, you both walk out of the marriage with what you had coming into it, and you divide whatever you got during the marriage. Worst case scenario one of you muddied the waters and has to pay out some assets to the other. Again, either way its not going to be huge, because the marriage is so short.

 

[ecmst12]

I thought that equity in a pre-marital property is only marital if marital funds were used for the payments/upkeep on the house? And in this case they definitely were NOT used since OP wasn't even making payments on the house.

 

[LdiJ]

I thought that equity in a pre-marital property is only marital if marital funds were used for the payments/upkeep on the house? And in this case they definitely were NOT used since OP wasn't even making payments on the house.

You are probably right...but we don't know if he was reimbursing his parents for those house payments and if that could be tracked. In any case, with such a short marriage any equity would be minimal...not worth fighting about...not worth the additional attorney fees to fight about it.

This is a short term marriage. Extremely short term. Neither one of them should be stupid enough to spend thousands of dollars on attorneys to litigate what assets accrued during the marriage.