When co-owners can't agree, a partition action ends with the property sold or divided and the proceeds distributed. Distribution by title share is the starting point; co-owners often ask the court to adjust for what each paid or received along the way. The adjustments are where the money is, and each one rests on a number the records have to support.
Four columns
- Contributions. Down payment, mortgage, taxes, insurance, repairs, and improvements, by co-owner and by date.
- Income. Rents and other income the property generated, and who received it.
- Expenses paid from property income. Management, utilities, and repairs paid out of rents rather than out of a co-owner's pocket, so nothing is credited twice.
- Use and occupancy. Where one co-owner lived in the property, its fair rental value over that period. Whether an offset applies is a legal question; quantifying it usually takes an appraiser's or market rent input, which the accountant then applies month by month.
Where the fights are
Improvements versus repairs. A new roof and a patched roof are different entries. The ledger should classify each item and cite the invoice, and leave the question of which category earns a credit to counsel.
The manager's ledger. When one co-owner has managed the property for years, their spreadsheet is the natural starting point and the natural target. The right approach is to reconstruct the cash flows from bank statements first, then reconcile the manager's records to them. Entries that don't tie to a bank record are flagged, not deleted; the court can decide what to make of them.
Cash. Rent collected in cash and repairs paid in cash leave the thinnest trail. Deposits, receipts, and contemporaneous texts or emails are the evidence that exists; the exhibit should say plainly how much of each column is documented.
Cut the ledger by period
Most partition disputes have natural break points: before a co-owner moved out, after, and after the action was filed. The same ledger, cut three ways, lets counsel argue each period on its own terms.
The output
One exhibit with per-co-owner totals by category and period, a documentation-coverage rate, and a net settlement figure under each set of assumptions counsel may argue. That table is usually the document the mediation is conducted from.