Title 10.5. Partition of Real and Personal Property · Chapter 2. Commencement of Action · Article 1. Complaint and Lis Pendens · Enacted 1976 · no amendments on record · Last verified July 28, 2026
This section defines who has standing to sue for partition. On the personal-property side, any coowner may bring the action. On the real-property side, standing extends to an owner of an estate of inheritance, an estate for life, or an estate for years, so long as that estate is held concurrently by several people or in a series of successive estates. That covers the common fact patterns -- siblings who inherit a house together, or co-owners who bought property as tenants in common -- as well as less common ones involving life estates and future interests.
Subdivision (b) closes off one path entirely. Spouses or putative spouses can't use this title to partition their community property, quasi-community property, or quasi-marital interest in property. That kind of division belongs in family law, not in a Title 10.5 partition action, regardless of how the property might otherwise qualify as concurrently owned.
Standing to sue is only the starting point. Once an action is filed, § 872.510 requires the plaintiff to bring in every other person with an interest in the property, so the case can resolve everyone's rights at once.
A coowner of personal property, or an owner of an estate of inheritance, a life estate, or an estate for years in real property held concurrently or in successive estates.
No. Section 872.210(b) bars an action between spouses or putative spouses for partition of their community property, quasi-community property, or quasi-marital interest in property.
Yes, so long as the successive estates are owned by several persons -- the statute isn't limited to present, concurrent ownership.
Yes. Section 872.510 requires the plaintiff to join everyone with a known or reasonably apparent interest in the property.
Added by Stats. 1976, Ch. 73.