What happens when co-heirs disagree about the building

Who decides while the estate or trust is open?

The personal representative or the trustee makes the decisions, and heirs have their say through the notices the law requires. In a probate, the personal representative acts for the estate. If they sell under independent administration authority, each heir whose interest the sale affects gets a Notice of Proposed Action, and a written objection delivered in time means the sale can go ahead only with court supervision, under Probate Code section 10589. In a trust, the successor trustee acts under the trust's terms. Each beneficiary and heir receives the trustee's notification under Probate Code section 16061.7, which starts the clock on any challenge to the trust itself.

So at this stage the disagreement is with the person who holds the authority, and it runs through that process. If you want the building kept and the personal representative plans to sell, say so early and in writing, to the personal representative and to the estate's attorney. Fewer options are left once the building is under contract.

How does a buyout between heirs work?

One heir, or several together, pays the others for their shares and ends up owning the building. Nothing in the law makes it complicated, but these have to be settled in writing first:

1. The value. Agree on how the building will be valued before anyone names a number. Some families use the date-of-death appraisal, and some order a new appraisal or ask brokers for opinions of value. Rents, expenses, rent-control status and condition all move the figure, so every heir should see the same documents.
2. The price of each share. The plain method is the value times each heir's fraction, which is also the method the partition statute uses when a court runs the buyout. Under Code of Civil Procedure section 874.317, each interest is bought at the value of the whole parcel times that co-owner's fractional share.
3. The money. The buying heir needs cash or a loan, and a lender will look at the building's income and at the buyer's own finances. Agree on a timeline, and on what happens if the financing falls through.

Before you sign, ask the LA County Assessor how the share you are buying will be assessed, and ask your CPA how the purchase changes your basis. The share you inherited and the share you buy can be treated differently for both.

Is mediation worth trying first?

Try it before anyone files, because the alternative is a lawsuit among relatives over a building that still needs decisions every week the case runs. A mediator decides nothing. The mediator helps the heirs reach an agreement they can all sign, whether that is a buyout, a sale on agreed terms, or a plan to hold the building for a set time with a manager and a budget.

Come with the facts. Bring the rent roll, a year of income and expenses, the property tax bill after reassessment, the rent rules that apply to each unit, and a current estimate of what the building would sell for. A disagreement about an inherited building can turn out to be a disagreement about its value, and one shared set of numbers takes some of the heat out of it.

How does a partition case work in California?

Partition is the court process for ending co-ownership. Code of Civil Procedure section 872.210 lets a co-owner of real property bring the action, although spouses cannot use it for community or quasi-community property. Under section 872.820, the court orders the property sold and the proceeds divided when the parties agree to a sale, or when it decides a sale would be more equitable than dividing the property itself, and it may appoint a referee to help it decide.

Partition actions filed on or after January 1, 2023 follow Chapter 10 of that title, now called the Partition of Real Property Act. It began as the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act, which applied to actions filed from January 1, 2022 and reached only heirs property, a defined category of co-owned property passed down among relatives. AB 2245, approved in July 2022, renamed it and extended it to partition actions for real property filed from 2023 on. In those cases the court works in this order:

1. First it sets a value for the whole property. Under section 874.316 that normally means an appraisal by a disinterested appraiser licensed in California, valuing the property as if one owner held it outright. If every co-owner has agreed on a value or on a way to reach one, the court adopts it, and if an appraisal would cost more than it is worth as evidence, the court sets the value itself after a hearing.
2. Then, if any co-owner asked for a sale, the buyout window opens. Under section 874.317, the court notifies the parties that the co-owners who did not ask for a sale may buy out all of those who did, and they have 45 days after that notice to elect to buy, at the value from the first step times each seller's share.
3. If the buyout does not take in every co-owner who asked for a sale, or a co-owner who asked for a division remains, the court orders the property divided, unless dividing it would cause great prejudice to the co-owners as a group. If it does not order a division, it orders a sale, or dismisses the case if nobody asked for one. Sections 874.318 through 874.320 set out those steps and the factors the court weighs.
4. One way the Act allows the sale is on the open market, through a broker the court appoints, who must report to the court within seven days of receiving an offer at or above the value the court determined.

A single apartment building is hard to split into separate parcels for each heir, so the buyout window and the sale are the stages to plan around.

What is the difference between an agreed sale and a court-ordered one?

The difference is who controls the sale. In an agreed sale, the heirs choose the listing agent, the list price, the timing and which offer to take, and they can sell with the tenants in place on ordinary terms. In a partition case, the court sets the value, supervises the buyout window and controls how the building is sold, with attorney fees and court time along the way.

Use the partition rules as a yardstick, then, rather than a destination. When one heir wants to sell and another wants to keep, an offer to buy the seller out at an appraised value times their share is close to what a court would do anyway, and it spares the family the case.

Partition is litigation, and each heir in one should have their own attorney. Shaya cannot advise on a partition case, because that is legal advice and his license is in real estate. Once the heirs agree to sell, he can price and market the building so that every co-owner is looking at the same offer.