Legal Question in Real Estate Law in West Virginia

"compulsory" Partition suit among siblings

I will assume that the property is in PA, since that is the state where I am licensed. I cannot give any advice with respect to WV.

Your sibling is probably talking about a partition action, where s/he would sue to have a court decide how to dispose of the property. I can't estimate the court costs or attorney's fees, because those would vary. If your sibling begins the action, s/he will probably have to pay an advance retainer to the attorney, unless the attorney agrees to wait until the property is sold and take fees out of the proceeds. The court may order how the costs of the partition will be paid.

However, it would be worth it to try to resolve this without litigation, which will just eat up part of the proceeds. Even if there is a court ordered sale, the sale price will not be "twice the market value". Perhaps you and all the other siblings could agree to hire an appraiser, or you and your siblings who want to keep the property could choose one appraiser, the selling sibling choose another appraiser, and those two appraisers choose a third appraiser. The three appraisers then come up with a value for the property and the four remaining siblings would pay 1/5 to the selling sibling. Before going ahead with this process, though, I would recommend that you all have a written agreement that sys that the selling sibling will sell, and the rest of you will buy, and that the value will be established by the 3 appraisers, whose fees will be shared among you (either 50/50 or 1/5 each).

You should consult a local attorney to guide you and represent you in this.

Good luck.

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