Dear Edith: I have a 30-year-old home that I want to sell to a couple, but I will hold the mortgage. Can the buyers get the $8,000 credit that the government issues, or is that only with official bank mortgages? -- e-mail

Answer: Assuming your buyers are otherwise qualified for the first-time homebuyers tax credit, it won't matter how they're financing their purchase. They could receive up to $8,000 off their income tax bill, even if they were paying all cash.

HUSBAND GOT THE HOUSE

Dear Edith: My husband I divorced 18 months ago after 30 years of marriage. My husband got the house. However, he never refinanced and my name is still on the mortgage. Since he failed to refinance, do I have any claim on the house if he remarries and sells the house? -- B.T.

Answer: You are still personally responsible for the entire mortgage debt, but that doesn't give you any claim to ownership or any share in the proceeds if the house is sold.

Still, look at it this way: If he sells, the mortgage will be paid off and you'll be free of that liability.

BIWEEKLY MORTGAGE

Ms. Lank: My son found that splitting his single mortgage payment about two weeks apart into two payments saves him considerable interest and, therefore, less total amount owed over the length of the mortgage. I asked my credit union where we have our mortgage, and they said they were unable to do this same thing. Have you heard of this bimonthly plan? What is your opinion? --V.A.

Answer: There's no magic to a biweekly mortgage payment plan. (Notice that where you said "bimonthly," I said "biweekly.") You can always save on mortgage interest by sending in extra money to pay off the loan more quickly than scheduled. And that's what your son will be doing.

Your son is not making those half-payments twice a month. He's making them every two weeks, which is a different thing altogether. A couple of times a year he'd owe a payment on -- for example -- the first of the month, two weeks later on the 15th, and again on the 29th. Because "every two weeks" means 26 times a year, he'd be sending in the equivalent of one extra full payment annually. Nothing wrong with that if it suits his income schedule and he likes the enforced saving. But it's that extra money that does the trick.

Trying to do that on your own would evidently upset your lender's computer program. If you want to accomplish the same thing, though, just send in one full extra payment a year on a separate check, clearly marked "to be applied entirely to principal reduction."

TURNING OVER TO THE BANK Continued...