Divorce and the West University House: Sell, Buy Out, or Defer

Why does a West University Place house need two signatures to sell?

Because Texas treats a homestead held by spouses differently from other property. Under Texas Family Code, chapter 5, neither spouse may sell, convey or encumber the homestead without the joinder of the other spouse, and the rule holds whether the homestead is the separate property of one spouse or community property, except as that chapter or another rule of law provides (read September 2026). Where a West University Place house is the spouses' homestead, one signature does not move it and a title company will look for both.

Which rule reaches your own house turns on one word, spouse. Chapter 5's joinder rule and the separate and community property definitions in chapter 3 say spouse in every section, and chapter 7's division standard runs in a decree of divorce or annulment, which is a decree between spouses. Texas Property Code, chapter 23 says joint owner, and the Texas Constitution's owelty exception says the parties to the partition, so those two reach co-owners of any kind, spouses included.

What each spouse owns is settled before anyone talks about listing. Texas Family Code, chapter 3 defines a spouse's separate property as what that spouse owned or claimed before the marriage, what was acquired during the marriage by gift, devise or descent, and recovery for personal injuries apart from lost earning capacity. Everything else either spouse acquires during the marriage is community property. Property possessed by either spouse is presumed to be community property, and the standard for proving otherwise is clear and convincing evidence. Except as provided by Section 3.102(a), community property is subject to the joint management, control and disposition of the spouses unless they provided otherwise by power of attorney in writing or another agreement.

Chapter 5 allows two narrow exceptions, both of which involve a court. The first turns on a judicial declaration of incapacity by a court exercising original jurisdiction over guardianship matters under Title 3 of the Estates Code, and which spouse may act depends on how the homestead is held. Where it is the separate property of one spouse and the other spouse has been declared incapacitated, the owner may sell, convey or encumber it alone. Where it is community property and one spouse has been declared incapacitated, the competent spouse may. Failing that, one spouse may file a sworn petition describing the property, stating the facts that make a sale without the other's joinder desirable, and alleging one of the four grounds the chapter lists. Three of them: the other spouse has disappeared and their location remains unknown, the other spouse has permanently abandoned the homestead and the petitioning spouse, or the other spouse has been reported by an executive department of the United States to be a prisoner of war or missing on public service.

Section 5.103 sets when that petition may be filed: in a court of the county in which any portion of the property is located, not earlier than the 60th day after the date a disappearance or abandonment ground occurred, or not less than six months after the date of a prisoner-of-war or missing-on-public-service report. Those are floors on filing rather than clocks running against anyone.

What are the three ways this house actually changes hands?

Three outcomes are available. The house is sold on the market and the proceeds divided. One owner buys the other out and takes the whole title. Or the sale is deferred to a later date while both owners stay on title. Each of the three can be reached by written agreement between the two owners or by a court.

For spouses, the agreement path runs through Texas Family Code, Section 7.006, which the chapter titles an agreement incident to divorce or annulment (read September 2026). In a suit for divorce or annulment the spouses may enter into a written agreement concerning the division of the property and the liabilities of the spouses and maintenance of either spouse. Where the court finds that the terms of that written agreement in a divorce or an annulment are just and right, the court is bound by them, and it may set the agreement out in full in the final decree or incorporate it by reference. The agreement may be revised or repudiated before rendition of the divorce or annulment unless it is binding under another rule of law, and a court that finds those terms not just and right may request a revised agreement or set the case for a contested hearing.

The court path runs two ways. Any joint owner may compel a partition under Texas Property Code, chapter 23. Where a court divides the estate of the parties in a decree of divorce or annulment instead, Section 7.001 sets the standard as a division the court deems just and right, with due regard for the rights of each party and any children of the marriage.

How does an owelty lien let one owner buy the other out?

A buy-out needs a lien the homestead rules permit. Article XVI, Section 50 of the Texas Constitution protects a homestead from forced sale for the payment of all debts except for the items the section lists, among them the purchase money, the taxes due on it, the refinance of a lien against the homestead, and an owelty of partition imposed against the entirety of the property by a court order or by a written agreement of the parties to the partition (read September 2026).

That last item is the mechanism behind a buy-out. An owelty of partition is the amount one owner owes the other to even up a division of the property, and because the exception lets the lien reach the entirety of the property, a lender can secure it against the house rather than run into the homestead protection. It arrives one of two ways, by court order or by written agreement, and the paperwork has to say which.

The same section allows a second route, a home-equity extension of credit, on conditions it sets out at length. Two of them: the credit is secured by a voluntary lien on the homestead created under a written agreement with the consent of each owner and each owner's spouse, and its principal, added to the outstanding balances of all other debt secured by valid encumbrances of record against the homestead, may not exceed 80 percent of the fair market value of the homestead on the date the credit is made.

The Texas Constitution says the lien may exist. What either route costs, and whether a particular lender writes one at all, is settled between the owners and whoever writes the loan.

What does a court-ordered sale involve?

A joint owner or claimant of real property may compel a partition of the interest or the property among the joint owners under Texas Property Code, chapter 23 and the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure (read September 2026). The action is brought in a district court of a county in which any part of the property is located, which for a West University Place house means Harris County.

Commissioners are appointed under the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure to make the partition. The judge examines their report, determines from the report and from evidence submitted by the parties the complexity and difficulty of making the partition, and awards the commissioners and any surveyor a reasonable fee for the services rendered. Those fees are taxed and collected as costs of court in the same manner as the other costs in the action, so they land on the parties through the case.

A decree confirming the report of the commissioners gives a recipient of an interest in the property a title equivalent to a conveyance by warranty deed from the other parties in the action. The recipient then holds the property in severalty under the conditions and covenants that applied to it before the partition, and a partition involving a life estate or an estate for years does not prejudice the rights of an owner of a reversion or remainder interest.

Where a court divides the estate of the parties rather than ordering commissioners to partition the property, the standard is Texas Family Code, Section 7.001. That is a judgment made on a full record, so how it is likely to go is a question for the lawyer holding the file. The section binds the court and not the owners, and it is one sentence:

What does deferring the sale cost, and what does it buy?

Deferring means the house stays put for an agreed period, with both owners on title and the sale set for a later date. The written agreement is what carries it. Under Texas Family Code, Section 7.006, where the owners are spouses and the court finds that the terms of that written agreement in a divorce or an annulment are just and right, those terms are binding on the court, and the court may set them out in full in the decree or incorporate them by reference (read September 2026). Terms left vague are terms someone argues about later.

Carrying costs run the whole time. The Harris County Tax Office bills and collects the city's property taxes, the deadline for paying them is January 31, and taxes that remain unpaid on February 1 are considered delinquent, with penalty and interest added to the original amount (City of West University Place, read September 2026). Houston ISD, Harris County, the Harris County Flood Control District, the Port of Houston Authority, the Harris County Hospital District, the Harris County Department of Education and the Houston Community College District all tax a West University Place address as well, so an agreement should name who pays that statement.

On the federal side, a deferral can hold an owner's residence test open in one situation. Publication 523 lets a sole or joint owner who was separated or divorced before the sale treat the home as their residence where a spouse or former spouse is allowed to live in it under a divorce or separation instrument and uses it as a main home (read September 2026).

How much of the gain is tax-free, and to whom?

Each owner has an exclusion of their own. Publication 523 lets an owner who meets certain conditions exclude the first $250,000 of gain from the sale of a home from income (read September 2026). Three tests decide whether an owner meets them, and a step in front of the three can disqualify a sale outright.

Ownership: owning the home for at least 24 months out of the five years leading up to the date of the closing. Residence: owning the home and using it as a residence for at least 24 months of the previous five years, and those months need not be a single block, only a total of 24 months, or 730 days, inside the five-year window. Look-back: not having sold another home during the two-year period before the date of sale, or having sold one without taking an exclusion on the gain. The exclusion may be taken only once during a two-year period.

Where the house was transferred to one owner by a spouse or ex-spouse, whether in connection with a divorce or not, the owner who received it can count any time when that spouse owned the home as time when they owned it, and must meet the residence requirement on their own. Publication 551 handles the cost side of that same transfer: a house transferred by a spouse, or by a former spouse where the transfer is incident to a divorce, keeps the transferring spouse's adjusted basis rather than a fresh one, and at the time of the transfer the transferor must give over the records necessary to determine the adjusted basis and holding period as of that date (Publication 551, revised December 2025, read September 2026). In community property states, Texas among them, married individuals are each usually considered to own half the community property.

Publication 523 puts an automatic disqualification step in front of those three tests, and a sale is out if any of the facts that step names is true. Two of them: acquiring the property through a like-kind exchange under section 1031 during the past five years, and being subject to expatriate tax. Which of these touches a particular return, and what each owner's numbers actually are, is a CPA's decision made from the records both owners hold.

What can this page not tell you?

Which route fits your house is a legal question and a tax question. A lawyer reads the title, the debt and the agreement; a CPA reads the returns, the basis records and the tests. Both answers rest on documents that live in your own file.

Whether a deed needs both names at all is a question about your own title. Chapter 5's two-signature rule is written about spouses and a homestead; where the two owners are not spouses, the title company and the lawyer read the deed itself and say whose signature a conveyance takes.

Whether any lender will write an owelty loan against a particular house, and on what terms, is a question for the lender. Ask for a written term sheet that names Article XVI, Section 50(a)(3) and states the amount, the rate, the term and the fees, then have the drafting lawyer check the papers against the exception.

How long a partition runs in Harris County depends on the district court's docket and on the commissioners' work. The lawyer filing the case is the one who can give you a current estimate.

What your basis is lives in your records and in the other owner's, which is why Publication 551 puts the duty on the transferor to hand those records over at the time of the transfer. Closing statements, improvement invoices and depreciation history are the raw material.

What the house is worth is an address question. The West University median sale price is $1,904,025 as of October 2026, and that is the midpoint of closed sales across the city rather than a value for one lot. Pricing starts from closed sales of similar age, lot size and condition in the same section.