Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Illinois
farm
A 200 acre farm is in probate with 4 siblings holding shares. One sibling has 2/5ths and the other three hold 1/5th share. What happens when some siblings want to sell the ground and others don't want to sell. Do all siblings have to agree before shares can be sold?
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: farm
It depends how the title is held. It may be possible to sell an interest that is less than the whole, but then the question is: Who would want to buy a partial interest?
The best thing to do is to get agreement between the siblings. If that is not possible, then perhaps a family settlement agreement that would have one or more siblings buying out the others' interests would work.
If all else fails, you may try petitioning the probate court to order a sale (this works well if the siblings who want to sell are being forced to pay expenses to maintain the property, etc.)
Good luck to you.