Market slump makes divorce more difficult

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Carol Lloyd writes:

Back in the days of the housing boom, I knew a couple whose marriage went sour, but they continued to live together for years after their divorce went through. Turns out the holy grail of stability wasn't their affection for one another, but a rent-controlled apartment. They simply couldn't afford to move on.

I wrote then about the way the white-hot real estate market was burning families going through divorces. Now, ironically, the sharp downturn in the market is taking a similarly painful toll on couples who are breaking up. It's not that they can't afford their next home but that they can't get rid of the old one. I have friends who are taking turns living in their marital home even as they hope to sell it.

But in the new era of homes going stale in an oversupplied market and their owners going underwater on their mortgages, this is but the tip of the domestic iceberg. According to divorce lawyers, the quickly shifting real estate landscape is making breaking up harder to do than ever.  Click here for the entire article.

Please be sure to visit www.hardinglaw.com, the website for the law firm of Harding & Associates, for more information on California family law.