California Partition Law Blog
The purpose of this post is to discuss how the proceeds of a partition action are divided between the owners of the property. This post will address the general rule for partition actions, address common instances, and provide some insight for anyone going through the process.
The first thing to know about partition actions is that they are governed by “fairness,” or what is commonly referred to in the law as “equity.” Although the California Code of Civil Procedure contains statutes that govern partition actions, all of a judge’s decisions in the action are supposed to be determined by what is fair. (CCP § 874.040.)
But what is fair? Generally, if a property is jointly owned by two parties and each of them has evenly split all of the costs, then naturally, fairness would dictate that they evenly split the proceeds from the sale. As many of us know, however, life is rarely so neat and clean.