Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

To do it legally, you would have to file a partition action. The objective is to get a court to order the sale. This is done when all 3 persons can't cooperate to sell it.

It is not hard at all. Just expensive.

Attorney Bryan Whipple, who gives great answers on this site, about a year ago, mentioned that he had handled one that cost to the litigant he represented some $14,000 in attorney fees.

The legal remedy for unhappy co-owners is a special kind of lawsuit called a partition action. Every co-owner has an absolute right to seek and obtain partition, subject to very few defenses, principally the defense of waiver. A co-owner can waive his or her right to seek partition by express agreement, or by entering into some other business deal with the other co-owners such as a long-term development project that is inconsistent with partition.

Partition gets its name from the prior practice of courts carrying out the partition of the co-owned property by physical division into two or more new parcels. As California became more urbanized, and with laws limiting subdivision, lot-splitting became less and less practical, and nowadays partition is done by a court-ordered sale and division of the net proceeds from the sale.

A partition case starts with the court hearing evidence on the background, including the ownership interests of the parties and others, and determining that the plaintiff has a current legal right to partition. This generally results in an interlocutory decree granting partition, and an order for the sale of the property. If the parties can at least agree on a listing broker and asking price, the sale can be conducted through normal commercial channels rather than a courthouse-steps auction.

After the sale, the court takes further evidence and decides how the net proceeds (after payment of mortgages and liens) should be distributed. Usually, the basic pattern is that each now former co-owner gets paid in proportion to former ownership, but adjustments are made to reflect owners' disproportionate overpayments of principal and interest, insurance, property taxes, necessary maintenance, and certain improvement costs that benefitted the others.

Like any lawsuit, a partition can be time-consuming and rather costly, and is not a promising procedure when there is little or no net equity to be distributed after sale.

Also, like other lawsuits, most partition cases settle out of court before fully tried. In fact, the mere filing of a partition suit is likely to result in negotiation by formerly obstinate co-owners regarding buying out, being bought out, or an out-of-court sale of the property.

Portions of a partition case can be handled by a court-appointed referee, or by voluntary submission to private binding arbitration, which can save time and expense and result in a more efficient sale.

So, whether it's expensive or not depends upon the stubbornness of the parties. Whether the outcome is positive may depend on the equity present.

The above accounts are substantially correct. If serious about taking the legal action needed to do so, feel free to contact me.