SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Here is a dumb question, have you made your XWW an offer? Give her an offer for what you think is fair and see how she reacts. Or ask her what she thinks is fair.

In regards to the value of the home and her not living there for the last 3 years, shame on you for not dealing with this issue then. If the divorce decree said she was 50% owner of the home, then you should have had the home appraised at that time and you wouldn't be having this discussion.

Let's say you had. I'm going to use simple numbers to show you that 25% of the current value is screwing your XWW (normally I wouldn't object).

Let's say 3 years ago the house would have appraised at $500K and your equity was $100K. She would have received $50K. Let's say it's now worth $550K (10% in 3 years is pretty good appreciation in most markets). And now your equity is $160K. 25% of that is $40K. Somehow her investment went down by $10 in 3 years. That doesn't seem right.

Maybe a more succinct description is she is entitled to 50% of the equity you had in the house on day 1 and only 25% of the appreciation since the house was purchased. I still think there could be mitigating factors that would push this higher/lower in a fair split. For example what if all the appreciation happened before she moved out, etc. Lots of different things to factor in, but in the end it's what will she take. That could be 50%.