Q: What is the general guidelines California judges use to decide value of a jointly owned home in a divorce?
Spouse A has the means to buy out spouse B. Spouse B has no income to qualify for the loan and also doesn't have enough cash for the buyout & couldn't afford the payments. Can a judge force you to sell your home if Spouse B refuses to agree upon a purchase price? 3 appraisals have been done, one by spouse A and two by spouse B. They came in at 540,000, 590,000 & 680,000. Can the judge force spouse B to accept an average of all 3 appraisals? How do the courts usually settle this?
A:
It is up to the judge hearing the evidence to decide what the house is worth. The evidence must be admissible for it to be considered. Assuming all three appraisals are admitted into evidence, the judge could find any of them to be more persuasive than the other two. Whatever value the judge chooses, you would have to pay, subject to offsets, one half of the difference between what the judge thinks the house is worth and the debt on the house. This answer assumes that there are no reimbursement credits tied into the house, such as reimbursements for using separate property to acquire the house or to make improvements on it or to pay down the mortgage. The answer is easier when the house was acquired during marriage (which this one may have been) and when the house was the only real property owned during the marriage by either party (and again, this may be the case here).
What judges down here in San Diego often do is give the high earner or the person most likely to be able to pay for the mortgage without any contribution from the other 60 or 90 days to make the equalization payment through refinancing. If the prospective purchaser fails to meet the deadline, the house is then put on the market for sale with the parties, absent reimbursement issues, to split the proceeds.
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