Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Your question omits an important fact: Who is on title? If you and/or your wife are on record title, the case will be simpler, and would involve a straightforward action for "partition by sale." If not on title, you'd probably have to include a cause of action to quiet title and or a "resulting trust" and allege all the facts behind the verbal agreement and why you are co-owners despite lack of a recorded deed. Maybe the divorce-case records would be useful If there is sufficient evidence to establish the existence and terms of the oral agreement. I encourage you to provide me (by email to [email protected]) with more information about title to the house and title history, whether the divorce case treated the house subject, and other long-ago background information, as well as whether informal paperwork and letters (etc.) exist which would help to bolster oral testimony. (No charge or obligation for such further review).