Selling Your Half of a Jointly Owned Home

The options for how to divide a family house or for selling your half of a jointly owned home depend on a variety of factors including the design of the house, the ownership interests of the co-owners, and the wishes of all parties involved. The options include:

If only one of the co-owners who wishes to sell, the co-owner wishing to sell can may try to sell their interest. As a New York estate lawyer will explain, the least complicated way to do that is to sell their interest to the other co-owner. However, the other co-owner must be willing and able to buy. If they are not, then they cannot be forced to buy.

You can then consider selling your property to a third party. This may present problems as a third party may not be willing to purchase a partial interest in the house. In addition, the remaining co-owner may not be happy with being stuck owning the house with a stranger who they may not like. In the absence of finding a willing buyer who is acceptable to the co-owner, this option is not viable.

Partitioning the house is a legal proceeding during which the court is asked to step in order an make a determination about the interests of the various owners of a house or other real estate. The result of a partition proceeding is that the court will order the house to be partitioned or it will be order the house to be sold.

A partition involves the court dividing the property and assigning ownership to each part of it. For example, if the house included an apartment on the first floor and one on the second floor, the court might determine that the each co-owners owns of the apartment. Once the property is partitioned, each owner can do with the part they own as they please. However, the court will not resort this this option if the house is not easily divisible and the result would be inequitable to one of the co-owners. To learn more about when a partition is practical and when it is not, contact an experienced estate attorney serving New York.

The result of a partition action could be that the judge orders that the house be sold. This is the likely result if the house is a traditional home that is not easily divided. The proceeds of the sale would be divided among the co-owners according to their interest in the house. This may be the best option for selling your half of a jointly owned home if you and the other co-owner are unable to settle the matter on your own.