Rights and Duties of Co-owners (general)
Under the common law, Co-owners share a number of rights by default:
- Each owner has an unrestricted right of access to the property. When one co-owner wrongfully excludes another from using the shared property, the excluded co-owner can bring a cause of action for ouster. As a remedy, the court may grant the wronged co-owner the fair rental value of the property for the time that they were ousted.
- Each owner has a right to an accounting of profits made from the property. If the property generates any income (e.g. rent, farming, etc. . . .) each owner is entitled to a pro-rata share of that income.
- Each owner has a right of contribution for the costs of owning the property. Co-owners can be forced to contribute to the payment of expenses such as property taxes, or mortgages for the entire property.
Read more about this topic: Concurrent Estate
Famous quotes containing the words rights and/or duties:
“What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“There are always those who are willing to surrender local self-government and turn over their affairs to some national authority in exchange for a payment of money out of the Federal Treasury. Whenever they find some abuse needs correction in their neighborhood, instead of applying the remedy themselves they seek to have a tribunal sent on from Washington to discharge their duties for them, regardless of the fact that in accepting such supervision they are bartering away their freedom.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)