Divorce Mortgage & Housing Solutions in Texas

Not always — but if your name is on the mortgage and the decree awards the home to your ex, you remain legally responsible for the loan until the home is refinanced or sold. Most Texas decrees include a refinance deadline (often 60–180 days). If the spouse keeping the home can't qualify, the fallback is usually a forced sale. The right move is to confirm refinance qualification before the decree is signed, not after.

Equity in the marital home is community property and gets divided as part of the "just and right" division. In practice, judges often start at 50/50 and adjust from there based on fault, earning capacity, custody arrangements, and the value of each spouse's separate property. The actual mechanism for the buyout — owelty lien, cash-out refinance, sale and split, deferred payment — is where most of the financial leverage lives, and it should be planned with a mortgage advisor before the decree is finalized.

An owelty lien is a court-ordered lien placed on real property as part of a property division, securing one spouse's right to be paid for their share of equity. Under Texas law, owelty liens are exempt from the 80% LTV cap that applies to standard cash-out refinances — meaning the spouse keeping the home can refinance up to 95% LTV (conventional) or 100% LTV (VA) to fund the buyout. The decree must contain specific language and the lien must be properly recorded. Get this wrong and the option disappears.

Possibly. Texas lenders will count court-ordered spousal maintenance and child support as qualifying income, generally if there's a documented history of receipt and a continued obligation of at least three years. We also look at debt restructuring as part of the divorce (which debts each spouse takes), reduced debt-to-income ratios from removing your ex's obligations, and in some cases non-occupant co-borrowers. Before assuming you can't qualify, run a capacity review.

Whatever the decree says. Texas doesn't impose a statutory deadline — the timeline comes from the negotiated language in your final decree. Common windows are 60, 90, or 180 days. If you miss the deadline, the decree typically triggers a sale or gives the other spouse the right to enforce one. This is one of the most common places we see avoidable problems: a deadline that's tighter than the lender's actual processing timeline.

It depends on the loan type. FHA and VA loans are generally assumable with lender approval and a creditworthy assuming borrower. Conventional loans are typically not assumable. If you have an FHA or VA loan with a low rate, assumption can be far cheaper than refinancing at today's rates — but the process is slower and lender cooperation varies. We can help you determine whether assumption is realistic for your specific loan.