How do I make my sibling sell a house that we inherited?

Attorney Tom Olsen: A suit for partition applies here in the state of Florida that whenever there are two or more owners of a piece of property, any one of them can force the property to be sold through a suit for partition. In the old days, folks, if we're talking about acreage and there were two or three owners, a court could literally decide, "Okay, we're going to literally divide this property into two or three different parcels and split it up that way."

These days, mainly we're talking about houses, you can't divide that down the middle. The remedy in a suit for partition these days is that the court will order that the property be sold. I started off that conversation by saying, people may think, "Tom, how often does that happen?" Well, it's happening pretty often in a pretty specific situation. You know what I'm speaking of, right?

Attorney Chris Merrill: Yes.

Attorney Tom Olsen: Why don't you tell the listeners.

Attorney Chris Merrill: The situation that you're thinking of where family members because they can't agree.

Attorney Tom Olsen: Specifically what I'm talking about is that, think about how many adult children have moved back home with mom and dad. Let's say there's three or four kids, and one of them is living with mom or dad. While mom or dad are alive, that's not such a big deal, but now mom and dad passed away and that child has been living at home all those years kind of somewhat feels entitled that he or she should be allowed to live there forever and the other kids, hey man, they want to cash out. They want to get their share of mom and dad's home and move on and I can't blame them, but it's happening more and more often these days.

Attorney Chris Merrill: Where they can't agree.

Attorney Tom Olsen: Yes. The one that has been living there all these years, just flat out, says, I'm comfortable here, I'm not going anywhere. Well, the ones that are not living there, they can force the sale of the property through a suit for partition, and by the way, the court would order the terms of the sale, picking out a real estate agent, picking out a listing price, picking out a sales price, and then when it does get sold, of course, any mortgages get paid off from the proceeds, but the next thing that gets paid is the attorney's fees and court costs. All of the owners of the property end up paying equally the attorney's fees and court costs, and only then is the money split.

Attorney Chris Merrill: Absolutely. Yes, it's awarded in that type of area of law in a suit for partition, the court will order the attorney's fees.

Attorney Tom Olsen: Yes. By the way, in that suit for partition, any one of the parties does have a right to ask for special equity. For example, the child that was living at home spent $50,000 to put a pool in that home, well, the court says, "Okay, that you spent $50,000, but that adds $20,000 to the value of the home, first thing we do is we are going to pay you back $20,000 for the value added to the home, and then we'll split the money between the kids."

Attorney Chris Merrill: I think that's a great point.