The monthly cost of owning a median-priced U.S. home — mortgage, insurance, and property taxes combined — now runs about $3,200 in today's dollars, according to Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies. That's 46 percent higher than 2019 in real terms, and it exceeds what homeowners paid in 1990, when 30-year mortgage rates were above 10 percent.
Three inputs drove that number up. Home prices have risen 54 percent nationwide since 2020. Property taxes rose 31 percent between 2019 and 2025. Insurance premiums rose 72 percent over the same period. The U.S. homeownership rate fell for a second consecutive year in 2025, with the sharpest declines among adults under 35.
Those figures describe buyers trying to get into the market. They also describe something else: the rising cost of staying stuck in a property you already co-own but can't sell.
Why Rising Carrying Costs Change the Math for Co-Owners in Dispute
Co-ownership arrangements are rarely a problem when they start. Two people buy a home together because it's the only way either could afford it alone. Siblings inherit a property jointly. Investment partners split equity on paper during a period of appreciation. The arrangement works until circumstances change and the owners stop agreeing on what happens next.
When that happens, the same cost pressures reshaping the buyer's market apply directly to the property sitting in dispute. Insurance premiums that have risen 72 percent since 2019 don't pause because the owners are in conflict. Property tax bills that have climbed 31 percent still arrive. A mortgage payment that reflects 54 percent of nationwide price appreciation since 2020 still comes due monthly — usually paid disproportionately by whichever co-owner is still engaged, while the other refuses to sell, stops responding, or can't be located.
Every month that pattern continues is a month of carrying costs compounding against equity that remains inaccessible until the dispute resolves.
What California Partition Law Actually Does
California's partition statutes, codified in the Code of Civil Procedure beginning at section 872.010, give any co-owner of real property the right to seek a court-ordered resolution of a co-ownership dispute. Consent from the other owner isn't required, and proving fault isn't required either. If you co-own California real property, you generally have the right to seek partition regardless of what the other owner wants.
Courts resolve partition actions one of two ways. A partition in kind divides the property physically among the owners, but this is rarely workable for a single residential structure. The more common outcome is a partition by sale, in which the court orders the property sold and divides the proceeds according to each owner's ownership interest.
The Partition of Real Property Act, adopted in California effective January 1, 2023, changed the analysis for what the statute defines as "heirs property" — certain inherited property held among family members — creating a preference for keeping that property within the family before a forced sale is ordered. Outside that category, the traditional partition framework applies: any co-owner can petition for a sale, and the court generally must grant it.
Verbal agreements made at purchase, informal understandings between owners, or an owner's refusal to engage do not remove a co-owner's right to seek partition. A partition action functions as a check on a co-owner's ability to block resolution indefinitely.
Why the Affordability Data Matters for a Dispute Specifically
The connection between national affordability trends and a specific co-ownership dispute is direct rather than incidental. The same cost increases making it harder for new buyers to enter the market — the 72 percent rise in insurance, the 31 percent rise in property taxes, the 54 percent rise in home prices since 2020 — are the exact costs accumulating against a co-owner who is carrying a disputed property alone.
That accumulation has a compounding effect that a static appraisal doesn't capture. A property's equity may be growing on paper while the net financial position of the co-owner covering the bills is eroding in real time. Resolving the dispute stops that erosion; waiting extends it.
A Note on How Partition Cases Are Handled at This Firm
Cost is one of the most common reasons co-owners delay pursuing a legal resolution, even when they know they have a right to one — a hesitation that rising carrying costs make more expensive, not less urgent. Underwood Law Firm handles qualifying partition cases through its Win First, Pay Later model: attorneys' fees are paid from the outcome of the case rather than upfront by the client.
If you co-own California real property and want to understand whether partition is an option, contact Underwood Law Firm for a consultation.
