Rule 96.01.Right to Partition in General.

Rule 96.01 opens Missouri’s partition chapter with the basic promise behind every rule that follows: a person who owns land jointly with someone else does not have to stay locked into that arrangement forever. Whether the co-owners hold the property as joint tenants or as tenants in common, and whether the interest is a fee, a life estate, or a term of years, any one of them can go to court and ask to have the property divided.

The rule sets up a two-track approach that shapes the entire chapter. The court’s first preference is partition in kind — physically splitting the land into separate parcels so each owner walks away with a distinct piece matching their share. But the rule recognizes that carving up real estate does not always work. A single house, a small urban lot, or an oddly shaped tract may lose value or become unusable if cut into pieces. When splitting the land “without great prejudice to the parties in interest” is not possible, the rule directs the court toward the second track: sell the property and divide the cash proceeds according to each owner’s interest.

Nothing in this rule requires the co-owners to agree before a partition suit can go forward. Any owner with a qualifying interest can start the action, even over the objection of the others. The rest of Rule 96 fills in the mechanics — who must be named, how commissioners get appointed, how a sale gets conducted — but this opening provision is what makes the whole process available in the first place.