In Ontario, Canada how do you get a court judgement to force sale of a property held as tenants-in-common?

Question

What is the procedure, cost and timeline? 2 of 3 owners refuse to sell on the open market, and refuse to buy the third person out at fair market value, as per the Will that left them the property over 3 years ago. This has been going on for over 2 years!

Answer 1

It appears that you are dealing with a probate issue as well as issues related to ownership of property.

I would suggest that you seek legal advise, in the form of a lawyer, or mediator. The legal issues are complex and technical, as the will will likely will have given direction, but clearly has not resolved issues. this will therefore have to be contested, and unless the other parties are willing (which does not appear to be the case) this will become a complex and time consuming situation.

At $ 100. to 150. per hour (or more) you can see that it would become very expensive to resolve this matter.

another approach may be to suggest to the other parties to have the property appraised by certified appraisors (not realtors)
(each party to do their own) and agree that the average is the base price to work from, and then to use this number as the value from which you all negotiate a buy out at terms that work for all parties.

Keep in mind that neither of the parties may be able to come up the money to buy any one or more parties out,so it may require each of the parties to become creative and allow for some private mortgaging to one or an other.

I assume you are all family in some fashion or another, so the emotional side of all this is another consideration and may make my suggestion something that allows each of you and the respective family to move forward and keep relations civil and constructive.

Ther is likely little incentive by the parties using the property to resolve the matter, but if everything else fails the courts will have to resolve the matter, and trust me "everybody will LOOSE".

Good luck

Answer 2

regrettably, if the owner sells the domicile, she has 30 days to bypass out. regardless of the season or what share dependents stay in the domicile, there is not something the tenant can do if the domicile they're renting gets offered. it particularly is extremely unfair and landlords don't have the capacity to sell a house that's already occupied yet regrettably, they have the dazzling too.

Answer 3

Like any other court order, file in provincial court to "petition a sale" but I bet the others will protest and drag it through the courts