Who Gets The House In A Tennessee Divorce?

Family Law

During a divorce, there is typically a fair bit of conflict over the marital property, since the family house is one of the most valuable possessions. In addition to the totally monetary aspects of the residence, leaving or offering the family home can be extremely emotional, particularly when kids are involved. That’s why both parties wonder who gets the house in a Tennessee divorce?

This may upset many divorcing couples, but the truth is that there is no standard or precise answer which would fit every situation. Neither is there such thing as a ‘standard division’ of assets in Chattanooga such as the family house. It always depends on the particular situation of the marriage or civil partnership, and only an experienced Chattanooga family law attorney can help you with that.

Obviously, it is much better to come to an agreement (such as a division agreement) between you and your spouse about the splitting of assets, but when it’s impossible this is where court intervention is supposed to make a fair decision.

What Aspects Court Considers

When a court makes a decision on who get the house in a Tennessee divorce, it typically takes into consideration the following aspects:

  • Whether you have children under 18 in the marriage, their needs and interests, as well as whom they live with
  • The age of each spouse
  • The duration of the marriage
  • The value of properties, both before, throughout and also after the marital relationship– this could also consist of pension plans
  • The potential income of each spouse and their obligations during the marital relationship (such as child-rearing) in the future
  • What each spouse contributed to the marital relationship in terms of financial resources and assets (and also may contribute in the future towards the household’s welfare)
  • The standard of living throughout the marital relationship
  • Disability if any party has it
  • The unfavorable conduct of a spouse (although this is rare)
  • The general needs of each party.

Pay attention, that the first aspect in this list is children. You need to understand that the court will always seek to meet the interests of your children first, and only then the requirements of both parties. If the split of the house is inevitable, you still may have some choices on what to do. Here are some of them.

  1. Buy out your partner’s half of the house

This is a good option as long as you have money in hand or are able to receive a new mortgage. The amount of money you pay doesn’t have to be exactly half the worth of your residence. You can give up other marital property worth about as much as the selling spouse’s share. This could be a share of marital investments or retirement accounts.

2. Sell the house and divide the money

You could release yourself from your ex-partner and also your home if you sell as well as split the money. You will not owe federal tax on your post-divorce residence sale profit if you comply with the following requirements:

– Your profit doesn’t exceed the amount of $250,000 (declaring alone).
– The house was your main place of residence for two of the past five years.
– You have not utilized the home-sale profit exclusion in the past two years.

3. Keep the house until your children move out

When kids are involved, often one parent will stay in the house together with them the other parent moves out during the divorce.

When the kids are grown up and moved out, the ex-spouses sell the home and split the profit. If you’re the one that haven’t lived in the family house in two of the previous five years, you could owe taxes on the profit from the house sale.

4. Keep the house and take turns living there

It’s very rare when a family chooses to keep several houses, but this may happen especially in a high net divorce. The children stay in the original house and also the parents take turns living with them and also staying in their own residences after the divorce. If you split the expenses, you ‘d each deduct the expenses you paid, such as mortgage interest and also property taxes.

Bear in mind that you can only deduct mortgage interest for a house you possess and from a mortgage you’re obligated to pay.

Tennessee family law may be complicated and the correctness of the decision varies from case to case. To make it clear to you who will get the house in your divorce you should get in touch with a Chattanooga divorce attorney. 

McKoon, Williams, Atchley & Stulce, PLLC offers a wide range of services to make sure your children are protected and you get what you deserve.

 

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