kelsh

gns,

I am going through the same thing right now. Actually it has been on-going since 2000 when my Dad died. He left the house to me and my brother. My brother was living there with my Dad, helping care for him.

My brother started drinking again and also has been doing drugs. He has not taken any responsiblity for the house at all. He was to live there rent free but he had to keep up the home owner's insurance, the utilities, and the property taxes. I had no idea that he wasn't going to work anymore. He did work at the pulp & paper mill...had 15 years there and it closed so he was working for a friend doing carpentry which he was good at.

So for a few years he existed on his small pension from the mill and rented out a bedroom & use of house for $300 a month to homeless people on SSI or Social Security. When he turned 65 he started getting his social security and still is behind in everything. I paid three years of back taxes and decided not to do it this year. So the house will go into Foreclosure soon. I have an attorney working with a reality outfit that has been court ordered to help with the sale of the house since my brother tried one year asking $99,000 for an old house but in good repair but no one was interested in even looking at it in that price range.

I would willingly sign my share of the house over to my brother rather than have it go into foreclosure where it is lost forever...but I am owed my half plus some of the bills and insurance I have paid.

I decided to get an attorney when I went to visit him the last time and he was going to the neighbors to get buckets of water to flush the toilet. The water was turned off, he had a legal paper from the garbage collectors that he had a misdemeaner fine for not putting his garbage out to be collected, he didn't have a phone, and the power was going to be turned off again.

I love my brother. I am an alcoholic in recovery and he had been sober 14 years when he had a suspended sentence over his head. I know a lot of his behaviors come from the fact that our parents enabled him all his adult years...bailing him out of marriages(2) and jail, and paying credit card bills. I had no idea that he would be this lacking in respect for our family home. I thought he took pride in it like I do but that isn't so. I just hope no one gets hurt or dies on the property or I am half responsible for it.

So to answer your question...I don't know how it would work for a divorce other than he would be entitled to half of the equity built up on the house+ his share of what the fair market value would be.

kelsh