Legal Question in Family Law in California

The judge has a lot of leeway in how to allocate assets and debts in a divorce as long as the result is that community assets and debts are equally divided to the extent possible, or there is some substantial reason to adjust the allocation either to provide for children, penalize a party for serious misconduct such as trying to hide assets, or because the parties may agree, such as giving one spouse more assets in exchange for waiving spousal support. Judges will also generally try to reduce the disruption a divorce causes if all else is equal, especially if there are minor children. As far as selling the family home versus letting one spouse buy out the other, if there are minor children the judge will all but certainly allow the parent who gets primary custody to keep the house if there is any way to allocated the assets to make that happen. If there are no minor children, the court is not very likely to force a sale if the net proceeds to you would be the same (or more after commissions, staging, etc.) as if the house was sold. However, that would only be if your wife could both buy you out AND refinance the mortgage. Judges do not like to assign a home to one party but leave the debt joint except when necessary to allow children to stay in the home. So unless your wife could do a cash-out refinance, or a straight refinance and has enough other assets to buy you out, you would have the stronger position that it should just be sold.