A couple times in the past weeks, I’ve been forced to ask some delicate questions of clients about their marital situation.
Honestly, the state of your marriage is not my business. However, if you’re in the middle of a divorce, trying to buy real estate in your own name, then I need to know.
Why?
Arizona is a Community Property state, which means spouses are assumed to be purchasing and owning things jointly. If I wanted to buy a property in my own name without my husband on the title, then hubby would have to explicitly give up his rights to that property by signing a disclaimer deed. If we’re dealing with an uncooperative spouse who won’t sign a disclaimer deed so that you can buy a property in your own name, then we’ve got a problem. You can’t buy in your own name as a married person without that disclaimer deed from your spouse.
October 2nd, 2007 at 4:40 pm
Kelley,
Delicate indeed. However, we’ve been asking this question as part of our mortgage application for quite some time. We heard too many horror stories to not consider asking. I heard a story where once the re-finance transaction was already in the rescission period when existence of the ex-husband emerged. This guy was furious his ex was about to re-fi him out. Would not sign the quit claim deed. The LO almost had a heart-attack over this issue. Fortunately it was only a re-finance and so they just cancelled the transaction.