Family Law · Divorce · Pittsburgh
Simple Divorce With a House in Pennsylvania
If you and your spouse agree on the divorce but own a home together, the house needs its own decision, and the time to make it is before the decree. A Pennsylvania divorce decree disposes of property rights where those matters are raised in the pleadings, under 23 Pa.C.S. § 3323(b).
A couple can agree on an uncontested divorce, settle the cars, the accounts, and the furniture, and leave the house for later because it is in both names.
Later is the problem. The decree is the point where the court’s authority over the house is used, kept open, or left behind.
The decision belongs to you and your spouse either way. The question is whether the two of you make it, or whether it gets made by default.
The standard decree warns you about life insurance. It says nothing about the house.
If you own a home together and are ending the marriage, call 412-351-4422 or schedule a consultation before the decree is entered. We handle divorce and the property that comes with it in Allegheny County and the Pittsburgh area.
Does this sound like your situation?
The decree form says nothing about the house. That part is up to you and your spouse.
How the deed reads decides what a divorce does to it.
That is a decision for a written agreement, made before the decree is entered.
The standard decree keeps open only the claims that were raised.
Read it for retained claims and for any mention of the house, then see the section below.
Bring it. The wording of the deed matters.
What the Divorce Decree Says, and Does Not Say
A Pennsylvania divorce decree follows a standard form, and the form does not mention the house. It declares the parties divorced, warns them about beneficiary designations, and keeps the court’s jurisdiction over claims that were raised.
The form is set by Rule 1920.76 of the Pennsylvania Rules of Civil Procedure. After the sentence that divorces the parties, it tells them to reaffirm or change the beneficiary on any life insurance policy, annuity, pension, or similar arrangement, and warns that failing to do so may result in revocation of the designation. It then says that the court retains jurisdiction of any claims raised by the parties for which a final order has not yet been entered. A court may add other provisions, but the standard form has nothing about real estate.
So the decree answers one question completely, which is whether you are divorced. It answers the house question only if the house was put in front of the court, or settled in a written agreement, before the decree was entered. The words that matter are claims raised by the parties. A house nobody raised is not on that list.
If you already have a decree, read it with those words in mind. We come back to that below.
Three Ways a Divorce Can End When You Own a House
A divorce with a house ends one of three ways. Two of them decide the house, or leave the court able to decide it. The third does neither.
Settle it by agreement. The simplest way is to decide who keeps the house, or whether to sell it, and put that in a written agreement before the decree. The Praecipe to Transmit Record, the form that asks the court to enter the decree, has a box for a divorce decree with a marital settlement agreement attached (Rule 1920.73). An agreement can say who keeps the house, how and when the other spouse is paid out, and how the proceeds are divided if you sell. With it in writing before the decree, the answer is in the file and is not left for later. Our page on a divorce house buyout explains the buyout side.
Raise it, and let the court keep it open. The claim you raise is called equitable distribution, the court’s division of marital property. If you are the one filing for divorce, you include that claim in the complaint. If your spouse files first, you add it back by filing your own written claim for economic relief, because the counter-affidavit alone does not protect it. Raising it does not start a dispute. It keeps the court able to decide the house if you cannot agree, and you can still settle it by agreement later. Under 23 Pa.C.S. § 3502(a), on the request of either party the court divides marital property equitably, and under subsection (c) it may award one or both parties the right to reside in the marital residence. The divorce itself can be granted first. With the consent of both spouses, the court may enter the decree before the property matters are decided, under 23 Pa.C.S. § 3323(c.1), if the court determines that doing so provides sufficient economic protections for any minor children of the marriage. The praecipe form has a box for this, a bifurcated decree with the court retaining jurisdiction over unresolved claims, and Rule 1920.42 lists it among the ways a decree can be entered. Our page on equitable distribution explains how property is divided when the court decides.
Say nothing about the house. The third way is the one that catches couples who agree. Rule 1920.42 allows a decree under section 3301(c) when the ancillary claims have been withdrawn, have been resolved by agreement or order of court, have not been raised in the pleadings, or, in a bifurcated divorce, the court has retained jurisdiction of them. Not raised in the pleadings is on that list. If the house was never raised and never settled, nothing in that rule stops the decree from being entered.
The notices that go out before a decree say as much. The notice to a spouse who has no attorney says that unless a written claim for economic relief has been filed, the court may grant the divorce and the spouse “may lose forever the right to ask for economic relief,” and that filing the form counter-affidavit alone does not protect those claims. The form a spouse signs to waive that notice says the spouse understands that they may lose rights concerning alimony, equitable division of property, and other important rights if they do not claim them before a divorce is granted.
23 Pa.C.S. § 3503 adds that when a decree ends the marriage, property rights that depend on the marriage, other than vested rights, are terminated unless the court expressly provides otherwise in its decree. Whether a particular claim is one of those rights is a question for a lawyer who has read your papers. The decree is where the court either provides otherwise or does not.
What a Divorce Does to a Deed
The deed decides what a divorce does to the house, so the first step is to read it. The wording that matters is how title is held: as tenants by the entireties, with right of survivorship, or as tenants in common.
If the deed says tenants by the entireties, a form of ownership held by married couples, 23 Pa.C.S. § 3507(a) says that after the divorce you hold the property as tenants in common in equal one-half shares in value, unless an order made under the Divorce Code provides otherwise. Either of you may bring an action against the other to have the property sold and the proceeds divided. After the expenses of sale, the proceeds are divided equally, and a lien recorded against only one of you is paid out of that person’s share.
Notice what that result is. Nobody decided who keeps the house. The statute splits it in half, and either of you can ask a court to sell it, whatever either of you wanted. That is what happens when the decree is silent, and it is a result neither of you chose. Subsection (d) of the same section adds that a decree does not change the law on liens against entireties property until the decree, or a certified copy, is recorded with the recorder of deeds in the county where the property sits.
Some deeds give the survivor the whole property. Joint tenants with right of survivorship is one name for it. Section 3507 speaks only of tenants by the entireties, and it says nothing about a deed that gives the survivor everything, so do not assume that a divorce changed it. If one of you were to die before anything was changed, who ends up with the house would turn on how that deed reads, and the owner who survives might be the person you divorced. Owners can change how they hold title with a new deed or a written agreement, and that is far easier to arrange while you both still agree.
If the deed says tenants in common, it sets each owner’s share, and the shares may not be equal. Read the numbers. If the deed was written years ago and the wording is unclear, bring it with you and we will read it with you.
If You Already Have a Decree
Start with the decree itself. Read it for two things: whether it says the court retains jurisdiction of any claims, and whether it mentions the house at all. Then find the deed and see how title is held.
A decree that is silent about the house may mean the house was never part of the case. If the house was held by the entireties and nothing in the decree provides otherwise, the entireties rule above describes where you stand: equal halves, with either owner able to ask a court to sell.
Reopening a decree is a narrow path. Under 23 Pa.C.S. § 3332, a motion to open a decree can be made only within the period limited by 42 Pa.C.S. § 5505, which lets a court modify or rescind an order within 30 days after it is entered if no appeal has been taken. A motion to vacate a decree, or to strike a judgment alleged to be void because of extrinsic fraud, lack of jurisdiction over the subject matter, or a fatal defect apparent on the face of the record, must be made within five years after the final decree.
Those windows are narrow, and they are not a plan for fixing a house nobody raised. Whether anything can still be done about the house depends on your decree, your deed, and what was filed, which is something to go through with a lawyer who has the papers in front of them. Our page on partition covers co-owners who cannot agree on what to do with a property, and our page on getting out of a co-ownership dispute goes through the options.
If You Want Help Settling the House
A web page can show you what the rules say. It cannot read your deed, and it cannot tell you what your spouse will agree to. If you want help, bring the deed, the divorce papers filed so far, the decree if you have one, and anything you and your spouse have already agreed to.
How divorce fees work is covered on our page about how much a divorce costs, and the timing is on our page about how long a divorce takes. Our pages on the marital home in a Pennsylvania divorce and on dividing the marital home cover the property side. If you are doing the divorce yourselves, our page on filing for divorce yourself explains the process, and the house is the part to settle before the last paper is filed.
Lebovitz & Lebovitz, P.A. handles divorce and the property that comes with it for families in Allegheny County and the Pittsburgh area, including the house that sits in both names. You can contact us to talk through your own situation.
Divorce in Pennsylvania is governed by the Divorce Code in Title 23 of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes, and divorce procedure is set by Chapter 1920 of the Pennsylvania Rules of Civil Procedure. Divorce actions are heard in the Court of Common Pleas, and the Pennsylvania Unified Judicial System publishes court information for each county.
Lebovitz & Lebovitz, P.A. · Based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Serving Allegheny County and southwestern Pennsylvania.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can we get divorced now and deal with the house later in Pennsylvania?
Sometimes the divorce can be granted first. With the consent of both spouses, the court may enter the decree before property matters are decided, under 23 Pa.C.S. § 3323(c.1), if the court determines that doing so provides sufficient economic protections for any minor children of the marriage. That works when the house was raised, so the court can retain jurisdiction. If the house was never raised, the decree can be entered with nothing holding it open.
Does a Pennsylvania divorce decree say what happens to the house?
The standard form does not mention real estate. It divorces the parties, warns them about beneficiary designations, and says the court retains jurisdiction of claims raised for which no final order has been entered, as set out in Rule 1920.76. A court may add provisions, so read your own decree.
What is equitable distribution?
It is the court’s division of marital property when a divorce is granted. Under 23 Pa.C.S. § 3502(a), on the request of either party, the court divides the marital property “in such percentages and in such manner as the court deems just,” without regard to marital misconduct, so the shares are not always equal.
What is a bifurcated divorce?
It is a divorce in which the court enters the decree first and keeps deciding the property claims afterward. The form that asks for the decree has a box for a bifurcated divorce decree with the court retaining jurisdiction over unresolved claims.
If we own our house as tenants by the entireties, what happens after the divorce?
Under 23 Pa.C.S. § 3507(a), the former spouses hold the property as tenants in common in equal one-half shares in value, unless an order made under the Divorce Code provides otherwise.
Can my former spouse ask a court to sell the house after the divorce?
If the house was held by the entireties and no order provides otherwise, yes. The statute says either of them may bring an action against the other to have the property sold and the proceeds divided, and after the expenses of sale the proceeds are divided equally. Whether another form of title leads to the same result depends on how the deed reads.
What if we are already divorced and the house was never mentioned?
Start with the decree and the deed. Reopening a decree is limited to short periods: 30 days after entry for a motion to open, and five years for a motion to vacate on narrow grounds such as extrinsic fraud, lack of subject matter jurisdiction, or a fatal defect on the record. Bring the papers to a lawyer to see what can still be done.
Do we need a lawyer if we agree on everything?
Our page on filing for divorce yourself explains the process. The house is the part worth having someone read your deed and your agreement before the decree is entered, because the decree is where the court uses, keeps open, or leaves behind the question.
Related: Family Law and Divorce | Divorce House Buyout | Marital Home in a Pennsylvania Divorce | Dividing the Marital Home | How Much Does a Divorce Cost? | How Long Does a Divorce Take? | Equitable Distribution | Filing for Divorce Yourself | Partition | Contact Us