Sale Of House During Ongoing Divorce
Location: Texas
I‘m currently stuck in a difficult situation and have no idea what my options are. To be clear, I’m not a party to the divorce, but I am a partial owner of the house. I bought a house together with my brother’s wife a few years ago. They weren’t married at the time and my brother‘s name isn’t on the mortgage at all. We were all living in the house along with their children and another roommate up until this past summer. My brother’s wife kicked me out, then my brother moved out willingly leaving only his wife, their kids, and the roommate in the house. I had nowhere else in the area that I could live so I had to quit my job and move in with my sister a few hours away. The problem I’m facing now is that I’m still expected to keep paying for my share of the bills even though I’m not living in the home. The job market in my current area isn’t the best so I’m not going to be able to keep paying for much longer. I know that she will let the house go into foreclosure if I stop giving her money, but I genuinely do not have any more money to give her.
My brother and his wife are currently going through a divorce and are under (what I understand to be) a standard TRO preventing them from doing anything big financially without the court’s okay. My brother’s ex is now claiming to me that she can’t sell the house until the divorce is finalize, which could take ages. Is there anything that I can do to not have this financial burden while they sort this out? Surely selling the house would be better for the purposes of the divorce than letting it get foreclosed on, right?
Other info that might be relevant:
-My brother has said himself that he doesn’t consider himself to be a party to the house’s ownership and will not claim any equity from the sale. At the time of purchase, we all agreed that we’d split equity evenly at 1/3 each, but my brother has now stated that he’d rather just not be part of it and is perfectly fine with it being split 50/50 between her and I. I’m fine with either way at of splitting it, or even just taking my third and letting the court decide how the rest gets split between them. I have in writing that he is 100% on board with selling the house and will do nothing to get in the way of it.
-She is the only one with access to the payment portal for the mortgage. She changed that password after being called out by my brother for not making the payment for a few months. I have never had access to the portal and have no way of seeing if the money I’m sending her is currently going toward the mortgage. She claims she has a payment plan with the lender and that we will be caught up soon, but I cannot trust her when she’s been using my payments for her personal expenses instead of paying the bills.
If we don’t sell soon, I fear the house will be foreclosed on regardless of if I pay my share or not, but I also just do not have the money to continue paying. I know a partition action is a thing, but I don’t know if a TRO would get in the way of/ delay that being able to happen. I also wouldn’t be able to pay an attorney to sort that out with the court and cant afford to keep paying in the meantime. Do I have any options here?
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