The divorce judgment says to sell the house but gives no deadline. Now what?

What the judgment settles

A judgment that says sell has already answered the biggest question. Neither of you gets to keep the house by default, and the restraint under ORS 107.093 has ended because the judgment is in. What's missing is the when. A gap like that is where two people who are tired of each other can stall for months.

Read the judgment closely with your attorney. Look for anything about who picks the agent, how the price is set, who pays the mortgage until closing and how the proceeds are divided. Whatever it does say is the frame we work inside. If the judgment is silent on those points, write down what you each believe it means and send it to your attorneys, so any difference shows up now rather than when a buyer is waiting on an answer.

Write your own timeline

When the court left the dates open, you can fill them in yourselves. I put together a one-page sale plan that both of you sign: the week we list, the price we start at based on recent comparable sales, and the dates on which the price drops by an agreed amount if there's no accepted offer. Once it's signed, nobody has to win an argument later. The plan does the deciding. If the market tells us the starting price was wrong, the plan already says what happens next, and neither of you has to call the other to ask.

I'd also add who pays for prep and showings, and who pays the mortgage while the house is on the market. The pages on who pays for repairs before listing and who pays the mortgage while it's for sale cover those choices.

If one of you stalls

Sometimes one spouse won't sign the plan, won't let the house be shown or won't return calls. That's when your attorney comes back in. I can't enforce a judgment, and I don't take one side's complaint to the other. What I can give your attorneys is a plain written record: when I sent each document, who signed and what is still waiting. A clean paper trail, dated and identical for both of you, can be the most useful thing an agent hands an attorney who has to explain why a court-directed sale hasn't happened yet. The situation page on a court-ordered sale explains how I run a sale the court has directed.