When a marriage ends, the conventional playbook calls for dividing the assets, finding separate places to live and moving on.

But one divorced couple decided to throw that plan out entirely and buy a house together instead.

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After their split, Lia Romeo and her ex-husband faced the same problem many separating parents do: how to raise a young child across two households without financial strain or constant upheaval (1). Renting two apartments in the same building seemed like a decent solution, but costs were prohibitive. Then Romeo came up with an idea.

"What if we bought a duplex?" said Romeo, recalling the time she came up with the idea in a column she wrote for Business Insider.

The idea immediately seemed to make sense; the mortgage would be lower than two separate rents, her and her ex could build equity, and their son could move between floors rather than neighborhoods. So Romeo and her ex looked around, found an available duplex and made an offer, which was accepted.

Fast forward two years later and the experiment is mostly working out well. "If my son wants to sleep with his stuffed owl or wear his favorite plaid shirt, we don't have to drive across town to retrieve it," she wrote.

Of course, the arrangement isn't perfect — thin ceilings mean a 7 a.m. wake-up on her off days — but the fundamentals seem to be going well.

The logic behind cohabitation is sound: maintaining two separate households after divorce is expensive, logistically complex and emotionally taxing for children.

Co-owning a property — whether it's a duplex, a shared multi-unit building or even a home where one parent rents from the other — can reduce costs, build equity, preserve stability for the kids and keep coparenting friction low.

Romeo's duplex experiment works because her relationship ended amicably, she and her ex communicate well, and the financial math made sense. But those are not universal conditions for all divorced couples, and making the decision to cohabitate with an ex is not one to take lightly.

Mixing real estate with a former relationship creates financial entanglements that survive the divorce itself, and they have the potential to outlast the goodwill that made the idea seem workable in the first place.

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The advantages of cohabitation can be significant.

Shared mortgage costs and property expenses — like taxes, maintenance and repairs — are split rather than doubled. Meanwhile, both parties build equity instead of paying rent indefinitely, and for parents, keeping children close to both households without shuttling them across town has real value that can make day-to-day life easier.

But the risks are just as real. Co-ownership requires sustained cooperation on financial decisions: who pays what, how repairs are handled, and what happens if one party wants to sell or can no longer afford their share. A breakdown in communication or disparate values could eventually create legal and financial disputes over a shared asset.

There's also the question of what happens when life moves on. New partners, job changes or a shift in financial circumstances can all destabilize a cohabitation arrangement that worked fine when it was initially set up years prior.

If you're considering this path, legal structure matters a lot.

Co-owners typically hold property either as joint tenants — where the survivor inherits the other's share automatically in the event of death (2) — or as tenants in common, which allows unequal shares and lets each party leave their stake to someone else (3). The right structure depends on your individual circumstances and should be decided with a lawyer.

A co-ownership agreement should also be drafted before you close on purchasing the property. This document should spell out each party's financial obligations, how decisions about the property are made, the process if one party wants to sell or buy the other out, and how disputes will be resolved — ideally through mediation rather than litigation.

One of the most significant and overlooked considerations for divorced co-owners is what happens to the home-sale tax exclusion when the property is eventually sold.

The IRS says single filers can exclude up to $250,000 of gain on the sale of a primary residence, while married couples filing jointly can exclude up to $500,000 (4).

After divorce, each former spouse is treated as an individual filer, meaning each may be entitled to their own $250,000 exclusion, but only if they individually meet the ownership and use tests: owning and living in the property for at least two of the five years before the sale.

For a duplex where each party occupies one unit as their primary residence, that test could be met by both, but it's not automatic, and a tax advisor should confirm the details before any sale.

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Business Insider (1); Cornell Law School (2, 3); IRS (4).

This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.