Legal Question in Family Law in Texas

You have to understand that you are operating in two separate worlds: (1) There is a Court system for the divorce decree which awarded your husband all right, title, interest in the house. (2) There is the County Clerk's office, which records deeds and so on. They don't use the same computer.

We often have a situation where the divorce decree unequivocally awards the house to one party, but nobody ever records anything with the County Clerk. There's an extra step that has to be done: the party who didn't get the house should sign a quitclaim or a special warranty deed, and that document should be separately recorded with the County Clerk (it costs about $18). I have had situations where the "losing" party refused to sign the quitclaim, and we had to pay to have the entire 35-page divorce decree recorded at the County Clerk's office.

The answer to your question is this: if Dad sells the house, you are not entitled to get anything. Understand that I'm saying this with the assumption that the decree was properly drafted and that it effectively awards the house to him. My guess is that the award of the house to him is not contingent on him getting it refinanced.

The next problem that you have is that Dad didn't refinance. This is another common problem that arises when we try to use the courts to disentangle two peoples' finances and property. If a decree orders somebody to refinance something, that is going to require the cooperation of a third party � a lender. It is entirely possible that the person who is ordered to be refinance is simply unable to do so, not because of any fault on his part, but because he simply cannot find a third party who is willing to extend credit to him.