In cases where the ownership of a property belongs to multiple co-owners and one of them wishes to terminate this co-ownership relationship, they can legally request the division of the property through the courts.
Very often, when a property belongs to several individuals, conflicts arise between the co-owners. Disputes commonly occur regarding the exploitation, sale, or use of the property by the co-owners. What can be done in such cases?
When there is more than one co-owner of a property, there exists a legal concept called “co-ownership” as provided by Articles 785 and following of the Civil Code. According to Articles 797-798 of the Civil Code, the co-ownership can be terminated, and this termination occurs by way of dividing the property.
If all co-owners do not agree on the division, any co-owner can request judicial division of the property. In this case, the court decides and orders the division of the property. The division can be done either in kind (physical division) or by auction.
Division in kind is done if the property can be divided into parts according to each co-owner’s share without reducing its value. Furthermore, the court may decide that co-owners who receive certain parts must pay a monetary compensation to other co-owners to equalize unequal shares, and this compensation has a compensatory nature.
The court examines whether, based on the co-owners’ ideal shares, the size and characteristics of the property to be divided, and according to common experience and logic, the physical division is possible in a way that is advantageous, does not reduce the value, and does not harm any of the co-owners.
If physical division is not possible or financially impractical, the court orders the sale of the property by auction. In this case, the property is auctioned, and the co-owners receive their respective monetary shares according to their ownership percentages.
