Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

One strategy worth considering is to file a suit for "partition" of the condo. Partition is a legal action asking the court to order jointly-owned property divided between the owners, and each co-owner holds such a right, so long as the right hasn't been waived.

Traditionally, partition was accomplished by physical division of the property into two or more new parcels, with each co-owner getting sole title to one of the pieces. This may have worked pretty well in the 19th Century, when we had a agrarian society and few limitations on the subdivision of land. Nowadays, even though the legal action is still called "partition," it is usually accomplished by a court-ordered sale of the land and division of the net monetary proceeds of sale.

The court ordering a partition will also supervise it to the extent necessary, and will take evidence on the parties' relative contributions to payments, taxes, insurance, necessary repairs, and the like, adjusting the amount each receives accordingly. In an era where the property will probably not sell for what is owed, special problems arise.

By agreement between the parties, a partition can be accomplished by sale to one of the co-owners at appraised value of the interest acquired. Also, a sale of the property to a third party can be done either by a court-appointed referee or, upon agreement of the parties, by a real estate company using conventional listing and sales techniques.

Finally, in a high percentage of cases (including those such as yours), the mere filing of a partition suit will cause the reluctant or unrealistic co-owner to come to his senses and negotiate a fair out-of-court settlement.

If you are interested in a further no-cost evaluation of your options, please feel free co contact me directly with particulars.

If your boyfriend is at least partly reasonable, sit down with him and try to figure out mathematically what most of the possible results of fairly dividing the property are. You have to take into account that you lived there so you should be charged with a reasonable rent for that period, offset by the amounts you paid on the mortgage, taxes, etc. You probably paid more than the rental income would be, so that might count as zero. He also had 4 months of rental value. If you sell the property tomorrow for $220,000, then you both still have to pay $40,000 each to retire the loan. So whatever method used to calculate how the value of the property should be divided up, it result in a negative value for him and you. He is paying $30,000 to get out of a current debt of $40,000, so is making money by not getting anything from you. Ask him what the basis is of his getting $20,000 when his interest in the property is 50% of $220,000 - 50% of $300,000 - $30,000 or a sum of negative $70,00, which is the same loss you have suffered. Point out to him that in a partition action the reasonable attorney fees you would have would be at least $14,000, of which he would have to pay roughly 50%+, along with his attorney fees of say another $7,000, so that the partition judgment would result in a sale of the property and his having to pay another $40,000 for his interest in the property and perhaps $15,000 in attorney fees, or an additional loss of $55,000. You are willing to let him walk away and save over $50,000.

If that does not work then you have to go with Mr. Whipple's plan. He has handled several of these types of suits before and is a very intelligent, knowledgeable attorney.

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