Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Yes, but since it might cost $10-15,000 or more to do so, you should attempt to see if you can get her to trade her interest in one property for your interest in the other plus or minus the difference in values. Att. Bryan Whipple, who gives excellent answers on this site, has handled several partition actions. You can go to his name to get the contact information.

Yes, if you or your attorney can't convince her to cooperate without being sued and spending a bunch of attorney fees unnecessarily. If serious about hiring counsel to help in this, feel free to contact me.

It would be far simpler, faster, and cheaper to go back into the divorce court and petition for distribution of omitted assets. In that proceeding all of the options available in a Partition action would be available, and more.

The fact that the properties were not included in the divorce settlement would need to be looked into as a possible irregularity, but other than that, I would say this is a garden-variety partition that very likely would be resolved by an out-of-court settlement soon after the suit were filed, since the reluctant party would see the likely outcome. Another angle, however, is that if the property has little equity, maybe the better course is to wait to partition until values recover a bit, and just make a new agreement on when that'll be and how you manage it/them for the best possible results in the medium term. If you decide partition is necessary, I can handle the case from my location with no travel-related costs.