All You Need to Know About Partition of Real Estate

Partition of real estate is the sale of interest in jointly owned property. Despite the many benefits of owning property jointly with others, a time may come when it makes sense to sell the real estate and divvy up the proceeds.

There are many reasons why it can be desirable to hold real estate jointly with others. There’s huge benefit to having others share the costs of managing or maintaining the property and joint ownership can even make it possible to acquire property that might have been unaffordable for any one person.

Unfortunately, even when these relationships go on without issues for years, a time may come when it is no longer possible to continue to hold the property together. Here’s where a partition of real estate comes in.

Many questions will arise in the process such as what the rights of the co-owners are, how they can be exercised and what happens where co-owners cannot agree on the sale of the property.

Partition of Real Estate in Florida: What Are Your Options?

The decision to sell interest in jointly owned property is only the beginning of the process. The owners of the property must choose how they want to go about carrying out the partition.

There are many options available to joint owners of real property in this regard. They include:

Listing for Sale

This route is best taken when all the co-owners are agreed as to the sale of the property. Where there is agreement, the service of a neutral third-party broker can be acquired for disposal of the property.

Going this route helps ensure amiable resolution of the sale process as all owners will be invested in the process to some degree. It can also help all parties come to a fair valuation of the real estate and how the proceeds will be divided.

Buy-Out

As one of the co-owners, you may decide to buy out the interest of the others. This process is absolutely legitimate and can be explored if you are thinking of expanding your interest in the joint property.

It doesn’t function on group readiness to sell though. Each of the owners may have to be approached individually and convinced to alienate their interest in the joint property.

Partition Lawsuit

In the event that some co-owners refuse to sell despite the willingness of the others, any one or more of the willing owners can bring an action for partition of the joint property.

The lawsuit is to be filed in the county where the property to be partitioned is located and where successful, the court would order the partition of co-existing interests in the property.

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Bear in mind that as a co-owner, you are entitled to proceeds of the sale to the extent of your interest in the property. If you have made improvements on the property or incurred other expenses on it, you are entitled to be reimbursed from the proceeds of sale. All owners must also pay a share in the costs of litigation in partition.