Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Minnesota

Re: Real Estate

If he is legally incompetent, has a guardianship been considered for him? Does anyone hold a power of attorney from him?

Without his cooperation, and without someone else having legal authority to act for him (i.e. guardian or someone appointed via power of attorney), you're going to need to go to court. It's possible to ask the court to order specific actions (lease, etc. or name a trustee (which will probably not be one of the other 3 tenants in common) to manage the land, but this will be a slow and expensive process. Better approach is to ask the court to order partition. In partition, the land is sold by court order.

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Re: Real Estate

If the joint owners (or anyone with power to act on their behalf) cannot agree on disposition of the property, then you must commence a District Court lawsuit asking the Court to partition the property. In such an action, the Court would confirm each party's interest and then either order that the property be sold and the proceeds be distributed according to those interests, or that one or more parties buy the others out. This is tyically the acceptable relief if the joint owners cannot agree on disposition of the property. You should hire an attorney for a partition action.

Feel free to contact me with further questions.