Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

You must file a responsive paper in the court in which you are being sued. What the contents should be depends on th facts of the case and what result you are seeking. A lawyer consultation would go a long way to clarifying your situation and assessing the probable outcome and chances for settlement.

Partition is a statutory procedure for separating and terminating co-ownership of interests in the same parcel of property, usually real estate but co-owned personal property is also subject to partition. The right of a co-owner to demand partition is pretty much absolute; the only defenses to a properly-prepared and -served complaint for partition are extreme unfairness and express or implied waiver of the right.

Most partition lawsuits are settled out of court, and the settlements usually involve either (1) an agreement whereby one owner buys out the other(s), or where (2) the property is sold in the open market and the net proceeds of sale are divided, either by agreement, through an arbitration, or on a court action for that purpose.

The name "partition" arose centuries ago, when most people lived on farms and zoning laws were few. The usual method of partition back then was physical subdivision or "partitioning" of the land, with each co-owner receiving a portion of the formerly co-owned larger parcel. Nowadays, with most land parcels having a more-or-less indivisible structure (house, store, factory, etc.) and with zoning laws often specifying minimum parcel sizes, shapes, frontage requirements, etc., most partitions that go all the way through a court proceeding are accomplished by court-supervised sale and "partition" of the net proceeds of sale between the former owners.

Courts are careful to take and consider evidence of each side's contributions to the co-ownership, such as down payments, mortgage payments, improvements done, property taxes paid, rents collected from tenants, and the like, so just because Owner X has a 50% interest recorded down at the Hall of Records doesn't necessarily mean he'll be awarded 50% of the net proceeds of sale. "Net proceeds of sale" means what the court-ordered sale fetches, less expenses such as commissions, legal fees, paying off encumbrances, etc.

Unless you can prove unfairness or waiver of the right to partition, your best bet is to accept the inevitability of partition and try to negotiate the best deal for yourself, which might include having an arbitrator decide questions the parties can't negotiate such as who buys out whom for how much, or what realtor to have sell the property, but avoid going through a full-blown court case if possible.