Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California

The court may apportion the costs including reasonable attorney fees on an equitable basis, not just the percentage of title ownership. But that means if you own 50% of the property, you may have to pay 50% of the reasonable attorney fees of your attorney [of course, the losing other property owners have to pay all of their attorney fees]. Since it can cost at least about $15,000 for a partition suit, you an use this as a strong argument to convince the other owner to sell.

Mr. Shers is right. If there are disputes about allocation of costs and returns it can cost even more. That is why there really is no partition case that isn't better off mediated than litigated.