Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Those who want to sell will need to engage counserl toproceed with a partition action. With any luck, a demand letter requesting sael wil be adaquate to get things moving. If not a court proceeding will be required. See an attorney to dicuss alternatives.

This gratuitous response does not create an attorney client relationship. The advice provided herein is generic, may not apply to your circumstances and is not to be relied upon in your actions. An attorney client relationship is created only upon execution of an engagement letter hiring me or my firm.

Your only option is pretty much to file a lawsuit called a partition action. If the property is not physically divisible, it will order it sold and the proceeds divided, unless they decide to buy out your portion.

Whether filing and carrying out a lawsuit for partition is a good idea or not may depend upon how much equity there is in the property, and therefore how much cash each 1/7 share is probably going to be worth after the partition sale. If there is $140,000 worth of net equity (after deducting any mortgage balance, any taxes due, and the costs of the partition case), each 1/7 owner would get $20,000 If three of seven owners were to join together as plaintiffs, they would stand to net $60,000 between them, which would more than cover the legal costs. Estimating how much the legal fees would be to do a partition is difficult to impossible, because you never know whether the owners that don't want to sell will resist the lawsuit to the bitter end, or whether they will see the handwriting on the wall and agree to sell before the suit runs its full course. However, I'd say it's 80 to 90 percent likely the legal fees including court costs would be under $15,000 (if I did the suit for you). That's not excessive in order to get your cash value out -- assuming there is cash value, as there often is when the house is inherited from parents who lived there a long time and didn't borrow.

Depending upon the value of the property and the equity a action for partition may be appropriate.

This gratuitous response does not create an attorney client relationship. The advice provided herein is generic, may not apply to your circumstances and is not to be relied upon in your actions. An attorney client relationship is created only upon execution of an engagement letter hiring me or my firm.