People divorcing are often advised to take advantage of their most valuable asset, the family home. Selling the family home can help to pay for an income drop after divorce. However selling your home during a pandemic can come with complications – anything from uncertainty about the value of your home, to ensuring you and your kids have a safe place to weather potential future lockdowns. Fortunately, the housing market is still strong in San Diego and remote viewings are an option. However, for many people, the family home might be more than a financial asset right now. With a “flight to the suburbs” expected due to Covid-19, your family home might have social distancing benefits, such as off-street parking and access to parks and recreational activities for the kids. Mediating the decision about selling the home will put you both back in control of the process, so you can respond to the changing demands of the pandemic rather than being bound by the decisions of a court.
Mediating Helps You Stay Ahead of Schedule
If you were conducting any part of your divorce in court you may have noticed that court schedules have slowed down and are suffering backlogs due to the pandemic. Mediating helps you stay on your own schedule, rather than adjust to the schedule of attorneys and courts. Mediation resolves more quickly than other processes. This may be important if you want to get your issues worked out so you take advantage of the upcoming seasonal housing markets.
Making the Best Out of Uncertainty
If you are deciding what to do about the family home, you will have to face a number of other related financial and emotional considerations. It’s not just the value of your home — there may be questions over your ability to pay the mortgage if you have lost your job or are in danger of losing your job. Other factors could include taking care of elderly parents during a pandemic or wanting to improve your home before you sell it.
Some of the issues mediation can help you work out include:
- The current and future value of your home and your preferred timeline to stay / sell
- How to share equity or debt if your home value plummets
- Who gets to stay in the family home?
- Where is the best place to take care of elderly parents / children during a pandemic?
- Can you afford to buy each other out?
- What if your income is affected?
- Do you need to improve your home before selling and who will pay for this?
- Are your children attached to the home?
During a global pandemic, where you live is one of the most important things to determine in your divorce. At Divorce Options San Diego, we recognize the interconnected nature of financial and emotional decisions, especially when tied to the shared history of the family home. In mediation we offer our psychoanalytical, legal and financial expertise to give you the tools to build a new plan for future security after your marriage.
Our Services and How We Can Help
At Divorce Options San Diego, we are highly qualified professional mediators and certified financial planners with psychoanalytical expertise. During the Pandemic, Divorce Options San Diego can reframe your divorce as an opportunity to generate creative, optimized solutions for your future and your kids’ future. We never litigate. We empower divorcing spouses to own their divorce and craft sustainable, effective mutual agreements that will last long after the divorce is finalized. We are accustomed to using ZOOM, skype video and web conferencing and texting for our national and international clients, and now remote, safe mediations. We help divorcing parents draft multi-phase parenting plans considering the child’s developmental needs. We can help co-parents build parenting plans that will withstand the challenges of parenting during covid-19, even if national or international distance is involved. We can assist you with the tools to stay connected to your child even if you aren’t the primary caregiver. At Divorce Options San Diego we emphasize an efficient, caring process that leaves out no detail relevant to your emotional, financial or legal situation. This leaves you free to get on with your life and care for your kids and yourself both during and after your divorce. We have offices in Solana Beach, CA but can work with you safely and remotely using telephone, video-conferencing apps and other forms of electronic communication. Please contact us for a discreet and confidential consultation see how we can help.
