Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Missouri

Re: house mortgage

Whenever I have been given the opportunity I have advised people not to purchase homes (and undertake mortgages) with their boyfriend, girlfriend, fiancee or whatever. Many of those who did not take my advice lived to wish that they had. You needed to get legal advice before taking such a big step, and now you are facing the unfortunate, but completely foreseeable, consequences.

Unless the two of you can agree to a deal in which one of you refinances and buys the other one out, or the two of you agree to sell the property and pay off the mortgage, there are only two possibilities. First, you can default on the mortgage paments and the home will be foreclosed upon by the lender. This will adversely affect your credit and may actually leave a deficiency balance on the loan which you would still owe after the property was taken and resold. Obviously this is the worst case scenario. Second, one of you can file a lawsuit seeking a court order for the property to be sold and the proceeds applied to the loan balance. This process can be time concuming and expensive in fees and costs. All of this trouble could have, and should have, been avoided in the first place.