We may have heard more than once the term undivided in cases such as a divorce, a separation and mostly in a The heritage. Even if it seems like an invisible issue. This issue is known as the legal expression where a good or a right belongs to more than one person and in this way none of the owners are given the full right of said property.
Taking, for example, the case of three brothers who inherit the family home from their parents or the case of a couple who divorced and who had half bought the apartment. They must share equally, having the approval of all.
What is a joint venture?
The joint venture occurs when the property belongs jointly to more than one person. As stated in the article 400 of the Civil Code no co-owner will be obliged to remain in the indivision.
In the case of housing, if it is essentially indivisible, if the owners do not reach an agreement of sale or payment for compensation, the property will be sold and its price distributed.
The owners and any person who wishes to acquire the property may attend the auction, with the particularity that those who are not co-owners must deposit a percentage of the value of the property to be auctioned in court.
Derivative problems
It is easy to imagine, the problem of sharing a property between several people is wide for that reason, even if the co-owners have a good relationship. Therefore, these would be the two most relevant disadvantages of this type of property:
- No co-owner has the capacity to use the common good without the consent of the others.
- Nor is it possible to donate, mortgage or sell the property without the approval of the rest of the co-owners.
It must be taken into account that the aforementioned refers to the entire property, but what the co-owner can use at his convenience or sell freely is his share of ownership.
But in most cases it is not feasible, for example, if the property is a shared home. The best thing is that decisions are adopted that do not harm the rest of the co-owners and that are approved by the majority of them.
How does the dissolution of the joint venture occur?
The law offers co-owners of a joint venture to request its dissolution of the joint venture at any time, thus avoiding the problems that we have just discussed.
- No co-owner shall be required to remain in the community.
- Each one of them may request at any time that the common thing be divided.
Divisible joint venture: in these cases, it is so easy to distribute that money among the co-owners, according to the participation fee of each one.
Indiviso indivisible: In cases like this, what can be done is to proceed with the sale of the property. That is, sell it to a third party or have one of the co-owners buy the part of it from the rest.
That is why it is so important that advance agreement be tried by all means.
