Posted by JohnBoy on January 24, 2005 at 14:35:45:
The other 5 siblings can file a partion suit to have the court order the property sold and force the sale and divide the proceeds accordingly.
In most cases, judges don’t like to see family members being greedy in cases like this. Especially where the one family member has not lived up to their end making payments as agreed, not having the ability to buy the property when it was offered to him, and holding out for an unreasonable share just because he can hold up the sale by not signing off on it. My guess is any judge would find in favor of the other 5 siblings and force the sale on the property. The judge may even award all costs involved to be taken out of his share just for being greedy and unreasonable forcing the family to take this matter to court.
What is the recourse for a family who entered into a land contract with an elderly parent who passed away. Five of the six children wish to sell the farm for a certain amount but one family member, who has not lived up to his responsibilty as far as payments, taxes, ect. refuses to sell. He has been offered the chance to buy the other’s out. But he cannot do that. Does this one individual have the power to hold the other five “hostage” to all of his demands? The other five have also offered to buy him out, but he wants a huge sum of money for his share and none of the other family members feel that this is right either. Help! The attorney who drafted the land contract with the family seems to think that there is no recourse because of all six of them signing the agreement. The mother died unexpectedly before the contract was paid off. Thanks!
Re: held hostage by one person on land contract - Posted by JohnBoy
Posted by JohnBoy on January 23, 2005 at 20:53:26:
Your post is confusing and I’m not sure I’m understanding it correctly.
Did this family enter into the contract as buyers wanting to buy the property or as sellers selling the property?
Was this a family of 6 children and the mother that all entered in the contract together?
As far as one party holding things up with selling the other parties could file a partion suit to have the court order the property to be sold and all the proceeds divided accordingly. Also, if the one party hasn’t been making his share of the payments then the other parties could ask the court to have the amount of his payments he never made to be deducted from his equal share and paid to the other parties in addition to their shares so they can recoupe the money they are out from covering his share of the expenses.
If this one party does not have the ability to buy the others out and he has not paid his equal share as required by the contract, then I doubt he would have the funds to fight a court battle defending a partion suit. In the end he will end up with a lot less after all the expenses are paid out of this to get everything resolved.
If it were me involved as one of the other parties I would tell this person, look pal! Here’s your options. One. You can buy the property yourself for the amount we all have agreed to sell it for, which is less than you think it should be sold for. Two. You can sign off on this to allow it to be sold and get your fair equal share. Or three. We will just take your a$$ to court by filing a partion suit and have the court order the property sold to resolve this mess. In addition since we are having to take it to court we will also demand we all get paid our money back from your share to cover all the payments we made to cover your share that you failed to pay. And we’ll ask the court to allow us all of our cost involved for this lawsuit to be paid from your share of the sale since you are being unreasonable, greedy and haven’t even made your share of the payments on this as agreed!
So buy it. Sign of to sell it now and get your equal share. Or get dragged through court and in the end be forced to settle for a lot less than you would get if you let us sell it now! Either way, you’re not getting anything more than you deserve by trying to hold out on this and demand a larger share than you deserve and have coming! So take what you can get now or p*ss most of that away in legal fees trying to defend a battle you will lose in the end! This is not negotiable! Buy it. Let us sell it. Or spend most of your share in legal fees defending a losing battle! Your choice! How do you want it???
Thanks a lot for your response. The farm was purchased from the mother after pa died. She wanted to stay on the farm and not have to move to town so she asked any of the children if they would want to purchase the farm so she could have a monthly income and not have to move to town. Needless to say emotions got in the way as no one wanted her to have to give up her home of sixty years if they could help it. She was in good health, but her ss just couldn’t make the bills. So six of the kids said they would buy it on a land contract so that she could have a monthly income and stay there. Well God forbid she had a heart attack and died. Because of course you know we are all gonna live to be a hundred. Well it was all put together by a family attorney who apparently thought that this was the ONE family that was able to work together! So he just did a cut and dry thing and made no room for any kind of corporation or anything that would give people voting rights etc. so here they sit. One person no matter what they propose just will not work with anything. The moral of the story is don’t do anything with family. Because it will bring out the beast in at least one member of it. Thanks again