Me: I am a 33 year old woman & engaged. No cc debt. Almost paid off car loan at 2% on a reliable newish car. 12,500 on a personal loan that will be paid in 2 years. After all my bills (including rent, parking for my commute, the loan, car, insurance etc.) are paid, I have about $1025 left over each month for gas, food and savings. I live frugal. My credit is very good and I have a meager savings (a few thousand) for emergencies (starting to save more) and I just started up a 401K. I have a very stable job and actually got a raise just a few weeks ago. I rent and pay less than 1/5 of my income for rent as I have a roommate. I live in an expensive area where most singles don't own homes.

Fiance, however, co owns a house with 2 other family members. I do not even visit the house. I think in 3 years, I have been there twice. They took out a bad "interest first type", variable rate, mortgage 4 years ago when they purchased it and are now almost 80K under water and have no equity. He can make his payments but has very little left over (he would not be able to assist much in paying rent or a mortgage of our own place right now).

To add insult to injury, he & the co-owners and five other homeowners in their neighborhood were sued on the grounds that all of the mortgage agreements they have state they are supposed to maintain some sort of water run off thingie ("thingie" is my technical name for it because I have no idea what it actually is) and none of them (not a single HO on the block) has ever paid this. It sounds like the owner of the "thingie" has a good case.

Fiance says they now can't even list the house for sale for some 3 years until their court date comes. No one wants to buy a house w/ a suit attached to it. They (being him and the other 2 people he co-owns with) can't refi, they refuse to try for a short sale or foreclose and no one wants to rent the place or even just rent fiance's room.

I pretty much stay out of it. It's far from where I live and he generally stays over with me (and my roommate) on weekends. My roommate does not mind as long as it's just a few nights a week. My moving in to fiance's house is simply not an option. We considered my just buying or "renting" the other two thirds from the people he lives with. However it's 3 hours away from my job and the mortage is insane. And the people he lives with can not afford to buy out his 3rd.

Here's my question. I can afford to pay for a nice-ish apartment for us, and my own bills while he continues to deal with this and pay his own bills. Saving money for our own house will be hard though. But if need be, I could.

HOWEVER....

Keeping in mind that we are in MA (which I think is a community prop state), assuming we are legally married when and if he has to foreclose (likely, IMO) how will it effect me? And when the judge orders him to pay 1/8 of the lawsuit (also likely) will I be forced to pay as well? Will the judge consider my income (much more than his) when determining what he has to pay every month? Would a pre-nup prevent any of this?

If the answer is "yes they can come after me too" and "no a pre-nup won't help", then we just won't get legally married until it's all over. It's not that I don't want to help him, but we need 100% of my income to live off of while he deals with this mess.

And, I won't lie, I don't want to end up responsible for a home I don't live in and have only visit twice. He & I agreed when we got engaged that our pre-marriage debts would remain seperate.

Oh, one other thing: I am autistic (high functioning thankfully) and not capable of living with another couple or roommate to save $$ (I wish I could) due to privacy/noise issues. No problem living with fiance or my current roommate (best friend of 10 years) but there is no way I could live with fiance and another person.

Thanks in advance!