Trying to think about your future can be hard in the early stages of a divorce. Your emotions may get the better of you, and you may have a hard time picturing your life after the end of your marriage. Conflict with your spouse will only make the situation harder to handle.
Trying to split up your belongings will frequently cause disagreements, especially when it comes to valuable property like the home where you live. Is trying to keep the house a worthwhile goal during a Maryland divorce?
Explore your motives for asking for the house
Before you go all-in on an aggressive strategy to maintain possession of your home, it is a good idea to ask yourself why you want to stay there. If the reason is for the stability of your children, your fond memories of the home or the proximity to your other family members or job, then seeking to keep the house could be a good idea.
If the only reason you want to keep the house is that you want as much property as possible in the divorce, then ending up with the house may not be the best outcome for that goal. Houses come with a lot of costs, and you may have a hard time refinancing and maintaining the home alone. Beyond that, your retention of the home will mean that your spouse keeps other valuable property or gets a significant portion of equity from the house.
After you have an honest review of your feelings about the house and the motivation behind them, you will be in a good position to start planning for your divorce. Being honest with yourself and others isn’t easy during a big change like a complex divorce, but it will protect you from possibly expensive mistakes.