Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in California

Re: House In trust

All your brother can do is sell the interest he himself has in the house, but probably no one would buy a 1/3rd interest unless if it were at a very steep discount. So his only remedy probably is to sue for partition--get a court order that you either buy him out or it goes to a public sale [either through the normal real estate sales process or auction]. Attorney Whipple from this web site [appears very knowledgeable and nice]has handled several of these cases. My guess would be that the Court might not order a sale because the Trust is the majority owner, a sale would violate your parent's intention, your brother was aware of all of this when he got his 1/3rd ownership interest, etc.

The Trust could attempt to buy out your brother's interest, taking into account that it is not worth 1/3 of the fair market value of the entire house since it only a portion of the ownership. You can try to talk him out of his plan