What Can You Do When Are A Co-Owner Of Land And Want To Sell But The Other Owners Refuse?

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This video does not create an attorney/client relationship. This video is for informational purposes and is not intended to be legal advice.

Hello, this is Tom Jackson. I wanted to spend just a minute and talk about a commonly asked question when there’s a multiple ownership on the tract of land. So let’s say you have five people that have an ownership interest. This can happen when you have several heirs to an estate and the decedent leaves the property to all five for instance. Over a period of time one of them may like to cash out and get their interest out of the real estate. However, the other four may not want to sell. Another example is if we have four people who want to sell and one doesn’t. When this happens in Virginia, the public policy along with the law is that one person refusing to sell is not going two paralyze this situation or render it incapable of it being resolved. Therefore, if you want to cash out in a multiple interest situation where you have a fifth, fourth, or third interest in real estate and someone doesn’t want to sell, we have a solution for you. We would have you file what is called a partition suit which asks the court to sell the property and to give you, your pro-rata share of the net proceeds. If there is an objection from any one or more of the co-owners this does not stop this suit from going forward. Simply put, one person cannot hold veto power over everyone else to say no we’re not going to sell it and keep the property from being sold. The partition suit is something that is filed in the Circuit Court. It is a process that takes a little bit of time to work its way through especially if it is a lot of real estate. For example, if it’s a large tract of land such as 150 Acre Farm and there’s three people that are co-owners then we may have another solution. There is the possibility for the property to be divided into thirds so that each co-owner gets an equal portion of the land that’s called a division of kind. That’s also a way to move beyond co-ownership so that you have your own piece of property allowing you to do what you like. I would love to help you if you ever have the needs. If you find yourself in a co-owner situation in real estate with a co-owner who doesn’t want to cooperate in selling give me a call and we can certainly deal with that.