Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: co-owners in property sale

You have to file suit to partition the property. It is your right and you will prevail.

Re: co-owners in property sale

You will probably want to attempt to reach a negotiated outcome with your family members as a first recourse. If that is not successful, you have a number of options to partition the property and also ask for an accounting for money made from the property. Basically, this is a court proceeding asking for the property to be split up between co-owners. Typically, it would be for a sale, but you can certainly indicate that you want to make arrangements to purchase the 20-acre portion and present that option to the court. There would need to be an accounting of the money from the property as the co-owners may owe you money for rent received less a fair value for the time you used it for your livestock. Also, you would need to evaluate how splitting off the 20-acres affects the remaining property value. These are the types of questions that would need to be answered to determine a fair value for the 20-acre piece and how it would adjust from your ownership percentage. Our office has real estate and agricultural law experience if you would like to pursue this strategy. We also have experience working with parcelization.

(Disclaimers: This is a general response and does not constitute legal advise relating to your specific situation in that a comprehensive consultation would be necessary to give you legal recommendations. Also, this response does not form an attorney-client relationship, but serves as an invitation to set up an appointment to determine whether representation would be offered.)

Re: co-owners in property sale

I don't think I'd stand pat; more bad things than good can happen. Also, if you have to buy someone out, this is a good time, with prices low.

Processing lot splits is very difficult when the property is owned of record by two or more co-owners with different ideas (or no idea at all) what they want to do. Making some general plans and asking the county the right questions plans is a good idea, but my strategic advice is to wait to spend much money on the survey, map and application until after you are a bit further into resolving the ownership and prior-use issues.

A major piece of information you need to know, understand and hold onto in case it is useful as part of your strategy is that the law provides a method for unhappy co-owners of property to force a break-up. It's called a "partition action," and often results in a court-ordered sale and division of the net money proceeds, but a partition historically was done by subdivision rather than sale, and if the property is suitable for subdivision, that can still be the order and result.

One possible strategy might be to file and serve a partition suit. When your relations get served and think about the cost of defending, being out of money, they will be highly motivated (one would suppose, at least) to talk deals rather than face the expense and almost inevitable result of the suit going to trial.

At that point, your best bet might be to buy them out, do the subdivision, and sell of the pieces you don't want. A side benefit of this is that, to some extent, you get to interview and choose your neighbors.

Another factor to keep in mind is that you don't owe anybody, including your brother and aunt, a dime for running your own stock on the entire 80 acres - that's your right as a co-owner - but on the other hand, they do owe you 25% of the profit they earned from renting to non-owner third parties. In a partition, the court's order would include adjustments for this sort of thing. If the partition were by sale, you'd get more cash, and if the partition were by physical subdivision, you could get a cash supplement called "owelty".

By the way, the aforesaid right to reimbursement applies not only to 3rd party rental income, but also to excess outlays made by an owner for property taxes, insurance, mortgage payments, and necessary repairs.

I have a small vineyard out in West Marin dairy country, and have handled land disputes and partitions all over the state. I'd be happy to quote you a reasonable retainer and fee for advice, aiding in negotiations, or filing a partition if necessary.