California Partition Law Blog
In a partition action the sale proceeds are distributed based on a party’s interest in the property. (Code Civ. Proc., § 872.810.) This includes parties’ ownership interest as well as what improvements they made on the property or other factors. (Code Civ. Proc., § 873.220.) In pursuing partition by sale, division of proceeds may raise questions for owners as to what they can collect. Depending on how the property was used, one co-owner may have a claim against the other for rent.
Why a co-owner may claim they are owed rents:
Under the partition statutes, the court may allow an accounting or other adjustments to compensate co-owners under principles of fairness. (Code Civ. Proc., § 872.140.) Under these compensatory adjustments one co-owner may claim they are owed rents by the other co-owner.
Often, the question of distributing rent earned on a co-owned property arises in the context of cotenants. Cotenants have equal rights to possess their property with their fellow cotenants. This means that no one cotenant can exclude another from the property. One cotenant can, however, assign their