Helping my mom out of a toxic marriage

If you're reading this, I want to deeply thank you for caring enough to hear about my mom's situation. The long story short here is that my mom is trying to land on her feet after leaving her abusive and vindictive (now ex-) husband.

They've been legally separated since January 2024 - as long as my mom has been living on her own, and their divorce was finalized in May I believe.

I don't want to dramatize my mom's situation, but to put it bluntly, she is retired and living on a fixed income, and just in terms of financial hardships my mom has since faced everything from extortion from a scummy moving company, loss of belongings, and a spiteful ex-husband that followed through on his threats to cease paying their mortgage if the divorce was ever finalized. Neither of them can afford the home on their own, but the ex-husband is delaying the home sale until it has to be decided by the courts which we've been told won't be until at least April of 2025.

Ultimately, I'm wanting to focus this campaign on offsetting the mortgage payments my mom has and likely will continue making on her ex's behalf because not doing so would ruin her credit. This means trying to support herself while also paying for two mortgages on less than $3k/mo in social security checks. We do so knowing that one of those mortgages pays for a roof over he ex's head. Her situation is bad enough that we've been throwing away our used TP for months because flushing them would cause waste water to backup into our showers, and we can't afford to have a plumber come out to fix the issue.

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(a) Cost breakdown

(b) The joint-loan

(c) The agreement

(d) Selling the house

(e) In conclusion

Cost breakdown:

My mom makes less than $3k/mo from SSN, and she's been losing $1.4k/mo paying for the entirety of the mortgage she still shares with her ex. Keeping in mind that her ex-husband still lives in their old house while refusing to contribute.

After losing half her monthly income each month to a house payment she never had to pay before the divorce, she still needs to pay $800/mo + utilities for her new place before even factoring in her own costs of living.

The joint-loan:

The issue my mom finds herself in is that despite having an agreement with her ex-husband that made him fully responsible for paying the mortgage, my mom still had to be listed as a cosigner since she was the one with a good credit score. This unfortunately makes her legally responsible for any of his missed payments and remaining balances.

The agreement:

On paper, my mom is equally responsible for any shared debts (i.e. joint loans) as her ex-husband.

In practice, my mom and her ex agreed that if they were to get married, she would give up her old home and be able to retire while he continued to work and pay for their mortgage and other expenses.

The sad reality is that even though my mom should be fully reimbursed for any mortgage payments she now has to make, her attorney is telling us that she'll likely only receive 50% of her money back through proceeds of the home sale.

Selling the house:

We are currently waiting until 7/8/24 for a partition trial date to be set, and we have no way of knowing when the trial date will be set, but her lawyer says that it would likely take ~9mo for the trail to take place. I would also factor in a minimum of 1-2 months after the trial concludes to get the house prepped, listed, and sold.

In conclusion:

I've never done this before, and I don't know what all to say or expect, or even how to run a fundraising campaign, but I really hope you can help my mother out in what are supposed to be the golden years of my her life. My mother makes this world a brighter place every day, raised three amazing children that would give up the world for her, and someone who's compassion, selflessness, and empathy is shared every day with every person she comes across <3