What Do You Give Up if You Quit Claim Your House to Your Spouse?
- When you use a quit claim deed with your spouse, you are essentially giving up any rights you had to the property. When using this type of deed, you are not necessarily giving any warranties about your share of the property. For example, you do not guarantee that the property has no liens, you only give whatever rights you had in the property. Once you do this, your spouse has the full ownership of the house.
- When you use a quit claim deed to convey your share of ownership in the property to your spouse, it does not necessarily get you out of the mortgage responsibility. When you take out a mortgage with your spouse, you agree to pay the debt regardless of what happens to the property. This means that when you use a quit claim, you then have no rights to the property, but you are still responsible for paying the debt associated with it.
- If you want to get rid of your part of the mortgage responsibility, you will have to get your spouse to refinance the existing mortgage. Typically, you should not quit claim your share of ownership in the house until your spouse agrees to refinance. This can all be done at the same time at a real estate closing. You will sign the quit claim deed, the existing mortgage will be paid off and your spouse will take over the responsibility for a new mortgage.
- If you simply sign a quit claim deed to your spouse, you may be giving up the equity that you had built up in your house. Once you give up the rights you had in your house, your spouse could potentially sell the house without your permission. Any money that is generated from the sale can be kept completely by your spouse because you no longer have any rights to the property. Because of this, it is important to make sure that you are paid for your portion of the equity when you give up your rights to the property.