Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Oregon
Co-signer
I co-sign a home mortage for a friend. I have been making the payment for over a year the friend has made about 6 payments can I take over ownership of home and evict friend.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Co-signer
If both of you are on the title to the home, then you cannot just evict your non-paying friend.
Where two people own a house and they no longer get along, it usually is necessary to "partition" the property. A partition lawsuit asks the court to determine who has what rights in the property. The court then orders the property divided (only if it is land where it can be broken into more than one parcel) or sold by the sheriff.
If the property is ordered sold by the sheriff, the court will divide whatever funds remain after the payment of expenses.
Our experience with partition suits is that the parties can usually negotiate a settlement that provides a better result than a court ordered sale, although often it takes the existence of a lawsuit to get both parties to come to the table to negotiate.