hey everyone welcome to this week's edition of title scoop so this week we're going to talk about partition suits these aren't something that you see a lot but when they come up you usually going to be talking to your underwriter to see what you need to do but I thought I would just go over what a partition suit is and then what you need to look at if you do see them so so property which belongs to them as co-owners so you need to have co-owners of a property that's usually going to be cotenants uh tenants in common joint tenancy um and basically what it does is if partition divides the property into equal shares and terminates the co-ownership so each co-owner then owns the property separately if the court determines that it can't actually divide the property and we'll talk about that in a little bit then it may actually order the the property to be sold and then the proceeds would be distributed accordingly um by whatever the court has said so a partition can be voluntary or involuntary um so a voluntary would be more like hey we own this property together and we've come to an agreement on what we're going to do with it in that case you don't really need the court involved but if it's if you have one party who has a disagreement and maybe maybe they are not sure what to do with it or they're disagreeing they could file a partition suit in which case the court could come down with a Judicial order on what they're going to do with the property now there's two types of partition there's a partitioning kind and that would be something like my brother and I inherited 80 acres from my parents when they passed away and we can't agree with what to do with it maybe one of us wants to sell and one of us wants to build on it um maybe we have different uses we want to do on it maybe one of us wants to build a warehouse and one wants to develop single family residential in which case we might go to court and have the court determine who gets what piece of land and in some cases like that maybe I'll get 40 acres and he'll get 40 acres now there's a partition by sale that a lot of times is going to happen on a single single family residents so maybe same situation my brother and I inherit property from my parents when they pass away and I want to sell it and he wants to keep it and rent it for whatever reason and because we can't agree the court has said well we can't split the house right down the middle and because you can't agree with what to do we're going to go um Partition by sales exactly what it sounds like right the court forces the sale of the property and then that's if the parties can't agree and then those proceeds are distributed to the co-owners um generally partition suits are going to be governed by state statutes so if you don't know what your state statutes are you can either look them up of course or ask your underwriter and we're happy to help you find those and look at those um so you know what the specifics are um so when is a property subject to a partition well there's a few things you need you need a co-tenancy uh so you got to have at least more two people who own the property it could be more than that but two is obviously you're gonna have to have two individuals or parties who own the property and that could be legal or Equitable in Most states they there's uh there's the ability to do it whether it's legal or Equitable Title um there also is usually a possession requirement and that doesn't have to be actual possession that could be constructive possession or the right to possess um and again if your state statute has modified that maybe they're allowing life 10 or remaindermen and you'll just need to know your statute and what parties actually do have an interest in the property as far as partition goes um usually you don't have to have you don't have to occupy the property that's something that sometimes people don't understand but occupancy is not a requirement um it's just a matter of having the possession or the right to possess now again not all property can be partitioned um the two that come to mind for me would be tenants by the entireties so if my husband and I own a property attendance by the entirety we're seen as one interest so that would go against really the underlying theory of what tenants by the entirety means and then burial plots where you might have uh people buried that would probably go against public policy again some states have more exceptions and some have limitations so you'll want to know your state statute just to make sure you're covered so if you see a partition suit whether you see a list pendants or maybe you see a partition deed or an order recorded on your property there's some things you really the biggest thing you're going to want to look at is you want to make sure that all the parties of interest that are required by Statute were given the ability and the notice required by statute to answer into this case and they were actually accounted for as you guys know with most real estate cases if the parties the necessary parties aren't named that's a good way to get the order voided so that's what you really want to make sure you're looking at make sure that the right property is accounted for the right parties um and that the the notice was proper so again Most states are going to have procedural requirements you can read through your statutes if you're not sure what your state is but those are things you're going to look at if you do see that um the effective partition for us is we're going to follow that order if everything seems proper everyone's noticed um and then the the order has been followed we're just going to follow that as if it's a conveyance and we're going to follow whatever the order says and we're going to go forward so again if you see these not super common reach out to us have us look at them and we are happy to help with that we'll call it weekend we'll see you guys all next week [Music]