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The Washington Court of Appeals, Division Two, ruled on October 27, 2026, that a lower court acted within its discretion when it awarded the family’s Sequim home to Megan Mae Coelho and assigned the remaining mortgage debt to her without requiring her to refinance the loan or sell the property within a specified period. Mavy and Coelho married in 2002 and had seven children during their marriage. Before moving to Washington, the family lived in Wyoming, where the couple received $1,518,103 in September 2021 for their interest in a business in which Mavy had been involved. In November 2021, the couple established an irrevocable trust under Wyoming law for asset protection and estate planning. They transferred personal property valued at $125,000 and an additional $250,000 into the trust. Their Wyoming home, valued at approximately $500,000, was also held in the trust, with their children named as beneficiaries. Following a trial in August 2024, the lower court issued findings on the couple’s property, debts and parenting arrangements. The final divorce order, entered on December 12, 2024, recorded approximately $300,000 in equity in the Sequim property and an outstanding mortgage balance of $428,572. The court ordered Coelho to pay Mavy a further $50,000.
Her former husband, Benjamin A Mavy, challenged the arrangement, arguing that he remained financially exposed to a mortgage on a home he no longer owned, according to the unpublished opinion available on Justia . He disputed the lower court’s assessment that the arrangement presented “little to no risk” to him. A divorce involving a Washington couple with seven children has highlighted how courts can divide family property and mortgage obligations without requiring a spouse to refinance a home. It awarded the Sequim home to Coelho and assigned the debt secured by the property to her. The court did not require Coelho to refinance the loan or sell the home within a specified period. The order also gave Mavy access to the mortgage account for as long as his name remained on the loan, allowing him to monitor whether payments were being made on time. In addition, it required Coelho to hold him harmless if her failure to pay an assigned debt resulted in a creditor pursuing him for payment. It also divided the couple’s community interests in four businesses equally, with each receiving half of the shares or units classified as community property. The lower court concluded that the overall division of property and debts was just and equitable. It separately determined that it lacked jurisdiction to divide the Wyoming real estate held by the trust. Mavy appealed the property division, arguing that awarding Coelho the Sequim home without requiring her to refinance left him exposed to a debt from which he no longer benefited. His argument focused on the possibility that he could remain liable to the mortgage lender even though Coelho had received the property and was responsible for its payments under the divorce order.