“I bought a house with my ex-girlfriend three years ago and she has not resided in the house for two and a half years. I am engaged to get married to someone else and I want to buy her out, but she refuses the buy out or to take her name off the deed. She stated the only way to get her name off of the house is to sell it, but I do not want to. I have made this house my home for the past three years and I do not want to sell. She has only made a few payments towards the mortgage within the last three years and has no interest in the property. What can I do to get her name off the house without selling it?”

Your final line of defense in a situation like this is what is called a partition action. Technically, it would involve the forced sale of the property under court supervision, but there would be nothing preventing you from being the buyer at that sale.

However, partition actions very rarely get to the end, because it is so clear how they will turn out. Once people realize how much worse off they will be, they usually are willing to negotiate a buy-out. Unfortunately, this may involve hiring an attorney and going through some of the motions before your ex is convinced that you’ll really go through with it.