Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Washington

Re: Quitclaim

The best way to protect your equity earned prior to the date of marriage is not to re-finance the home or quit claim title to your wife. On the contrary, that will virtually gift her half the equity.

The best, closest thing to fool-proof method you can use at this point is a post-nuptial agreement. To make it enforceable, you should each have separate attorneys representing you. Probably the most efficient manner in which to do this is for you to hire an attorney to draft a proposed post-nuptial agreement, and then have her attorney review it and to the extent negotiations need to take place to modify it so that both sides are satisfied, that's what the attorneys will do for you both.

If you like, you may pay for her attorney, but I advise that you simply tell her to go out and hire someone that she finds on her own and then provide her with the necessary funds to hire the attorney. You should have no contact with this attorney yourself.

Hopefully, after it's done, you will never have to revert or look to this document. If you get to the point where you divorce, then you will be able to look back at this document for protection of your equity in the home. The fact that each side will have had an attorney represent them and that the attorney's signed off on the agreement makes it very difficult for her to ask a court to ignore the distribution called for in the post-nuptial agreement, given that she would have made a well informed decision with independent legal advice before signing off on it.

I am happy to help you in such an endeavor, so feel free to contact me anytime.