Q: I need to sell my house but my ex is giving me a hard time on this. We were instructed to put it in market in January .
I need to sell my house but my ex is giving me a hard time on this. We were instructed to put it in market in January on the divorce decree but it’s been months now and she won’t leave. She had an apartment but decided to move back into the house back in December with my daughter.
A: Hello, that is definitely frustrating but you do have options you can take legally. One option is to file a motion with the court for enforcement of your divorce agreement as it relates to the sale of the house. You can compel her to cooperate with the sale and even establish repercussions for failure to cooperate if she continues down this path.
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A:
A motion to compel the sale of a house post-divorce, when ordered by the court, is typically filed when one party fails to comply with the terms of the divorce decree regarding the sale of jointly owned property. The court has the authority to enforce the sale through such a motion, ensuring that the terms of the divorce judgment are followed. This is aligned with the principles of equitable distribution and the enforcement of court orders in family law matters. If a motion to compel is successful, the court may also award attorney's fees to the prevailing party, especially if it finds that the other party's failure to comply was unreasonable or in bad faith.
A relevant case is Bisbing v. Bisbing, 230 N.J. 309 (2017), where the New Jersey Supreme Court emphasized the enforcement of property division and sale terms as specified in a divorce settlement or court order and noted that awarding attorney's fees can be an appropriate remedy when one party's noncompliance unnecessarily increases the financial burden on the other.
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