Joint ownership - right to sell?

C

Charley

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Hi, a relative of mine co-owns a property with her sister and wants to sell it but her sister refuses to buy her out OR to put it on the market - what are her rights?

When her father died (intestate), the estate was divided three ways between the mother and the two daughters. The mother has since died and so the two daughters are now joint owners of the property.

However, one sister wants the other to give her the property at a lower than market price, and refuses to either a) pay the going rate to buy the other sister out, or b) to put it on the open market so that they can both realise their share of the proceeds. As a result, the property is becoming rundown.

What are her rights - can she do anything about her sister's stone-walling & force her to sell up, if she's not prepared to buy her out?
 
She can force her to sell, but it entails a court action in which the costs are a major disincentive. Generally this type of thing is a bluffing game- your relative can threaten to brief a barrister for court proceedings, then go ahead and do it, then issue court proceedings. At any stage in this process the sister may blink, realise that if it goes to court she will lose out in costs and cave in. OR if she is stubborn enough ( or silly enough) it may go all the way into court in which case they will both lose out because the costs will eat into the equity.

IF she was any way reasonable one could suggest obtaining independant valuations of the property but quite often people in this type of situation will only believe what they want to believe as regards value and of course, as it is highly subjective, it is hard to be definitive.
 
Yes, thanks for that suggestion. She has already got a couple of independent valuations done and supplied these but, unfortunately, her sister refuses to accept them and prefers to make up her own figure as to what she regards as a fair price.

I doubt she will want to go via the court route so only option seems to be to wait it out!

thank you
 
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