Article #6 from Foreclosure Articles
by David Whisnant Editor, Real Estate Investor, and Attorney

Foreclosure:

Foreclosures And Divorce


situation where you have a divorce, and supposedly there is a decree out there detailing who gets the foreclosure property, that you go get that decree yourself at the courthouse and read it to make sure. Or, tell your closing attorney to go ahead and get someone down there to pull it early. Tell the closing attorney that the husband supposedly signed the foreclosure property over to the wife (or vice versa), and that you want to know far in advance if that is not the case. Some jurisdictions will allow you to close on the foreclosure property and get good title even if the husband refused to sign. If the decree says that the husband is to transfer title, that is sometimes sufficient to transfer the title by operation of law. That is up to your closing attorney and his title insurance company to determine. If you have looked up the divorce decree at the courthouse and made a copy of it, you can fax that to your closing attorney to see if that will transfer title even if there is no deed associated with the foreclosure property.

What to do to save a foreclosure deal where there is no deed from the spouse, and the decree was not enough, by itself, to transfer title because of the way it was worded?

In the best of all worlds, (which never happens!), you would call the husband and explain that he needs to sign your contract or a quitclaim deed to the wife, per the divorce decree instructions. That call NEVER goes smoothly in my experience with foreclosures.

Here is literally how the last call that I made like this went on a foreclosure deal:

“Heck no! I ain’t signing anything for that woman. She can have


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