Legal Question in Investment Law in California

Re: Time Share Contract

A time share can be either real property or personal property, see Business and Professions Code section 11212(x)(1) and (2) (which calles them a "time share estate" if it is real property and a "time share use" if you don't have a freehold estate of some kind. It would be necessary to look at your purchase contract to classify it properly.

The distinction may be unimportant. You can file and prosecute a partition suit for either real or personal property, see Code of Civil Procedure section 872.010(c). This action would have to be brought in the Superior Court of the California county where the time-share is situated.

A partition is an action to require a sale and splitting of the net proceeds, but very often they are settled out-of-court by one party buying out the other.

Most likely, the ex-boyfriend would settle up with you, or at least negotiate in good faith, as soon as faced with the reality of having to defend a partition suit. It's hard to predict what you'd have to spend on court and attorney fees, but the likelihood that he wouldn't want to pay to defend could bring about a prompt resolution.

As information, since you paid the initial acquisition costs, I suspect a judge would award you 100% ownership but require you to reimburse the ex-boyfriend for the payments he's made. So, if you file suit and then he negotiates, you might consider asking for 100% of the timeshare but he gets reimbursed. That's assuming you want to keep it.

Another question you should ask yourself is what is it worth?

Re: Time Share Contract

An afterthought - if your time-share is real property, there are other actions in addition to partition that you might consider, including ejectment (a suit designed to authorize the sheriff to throw out trespassers, and similar situations) and declaratory relief (asking a court to declare the parties' rights when there is a legal controversy).