Partition Action and Heirs Property: Buyout Rights by State (2026)

What changes when the property is heirs property

Most pages that rank for this subject are local law-firm posts about one state. The statutes themselves are more specific, and they are almost the same from state to state because they copy a Uniform Law Commission act. The Commission describes the problem in one sentence: “Tenants-in-common are vulnerable because any individual tenant can force a partition.” It lists the fix as “notice, appraisal, right of first refusal, and if the other co-tenants choose not to exercise their right and a sale is required, a commercially reasonable sale supervised by the court to ensure all parties receive their fair share of the proceeds.”

The table sets Florida’s two parts side by side, because Florida’s chapter 64 keeps the old rule (Part I) and the uniform act (Part II, sections 64.201 to 64.214, from chapter 2020-55) in the same text.

The state matrix: 16 states and D.C., read from the statutes

Each row comes from the text we saved in the sources folder. “Applies to” is the date from which the act governs partition actions. A cell that says “section not read” means we saved only the buyout section for that state (New Mexico, Utah and Nevada), so we do not claim the other columns for it. New Mexico’s section is a FindLaw copy of the statute and Nevada’s is a Nevada.Public.Law copy; every other row is from the legislature’s own site or the enacted session law (New Jersey, Illinois and New York were read through the Internet Archive copy of the official page).

“20 percent test” is shorthand for the uniform definition: real property held in tenancy in common with no agreement in a record binding all the cotenants on partition, where one or more cotenants acquired title from a relative, living or deceased, and where any of these applies: 20 percent or more of the interests are held by cotenants who are relatives; 20 percent or more of the interests are held by an individual who acquired title from a relative; or 20 percent or more of the cotenants are relatives (Florida 64.202(6); the same wording appears in Texas, Maryland, Montana and the others in the table). Three siblings who inherit from a parent meet every limb.

Where the states depart from the uniform text

• Alabama gives 30 days to elect, counts the payment date from the end of the notice period, and does not make the open-market sale the default: the court “shall order that the sale be conducted by” one or more of open market sale, sealed bids, public auction or private sale, choosing the method more economically advantageous and in the best interest of the cotenants.
• South Carolina asks a cotenant who wants to buy to tell the court “no later than ten days prior to the date set for the partition trial” (15-61-370(B)), and waits not sooner than sixty days after the appraisal notice before the value hearing, against 30 or 31 days in the other states where we saved that section. The act carries a public official’s name in its title.
• New York limits heirs property to land “used for residential or agricultural purposes”, requires a mandatory settlement conference within sixty days after a request for judicial intervention is filed, and refuses partition in kind only for “great manifest prejudice”; partition by sale covers the portion where a relative who acquired title lives.
• New Jersey works through a special master, with written notice of the buyout right within 30 days and payment into the Superior Court Trust Fund within 60 days.
• Missouri codifies the same text under the title “Save the Family Farm Act”, so a search for the uniform act’s name will not find it.
• The District of Columbia has no heirs-property definition at all; its subchapter is titled for partition of real property and covers co-owners who are not relatives, with the value hearing not sooner than 31 days after the appraisal notice.
• Florida adds an equitable accounting for contributions and adjustments between cotenants, applied to any price or buyout.
• Virginia is a different case. The section we read, 8.01-81.1, requires the court to “order an appraisal” in every partition action unless the parties agree on value or the cost outweighs the use, with the expense advanced by the plaintiff and taxed as costs; it contains no cotenant-buyout window, and we did not read the other Virginia partition sections, so Virginia is not in the matrix.

Which states are not verified

The Uniform Law Commission’s page for the act describes it and lists a bill tracker, but it shows no table of enacting states and no count. Published tallies we saw elsewhere disagree with each other, so we do not repeat them. Our count is of statutes we could open: 16 states and the District of Columbia. Other states appear in secondary lists of enactments (Georgia, Hawaii, Michigan, Mississippi and Arkansas among them), and some state sites block automated requests or were unavailable on October 24, 2026, so all of them are marked not verified here and may add rows to the data file when their statutes can be read.

What a buyout or a forced sale means for the tax return

Federal tax does not change with the partition route; the amounts do. These are the rules the worked example uses.

For the extra 3.8 percent tax see our net investment income tax guide, and for the residence exclusion our home sale exclusion guide. For how the date-of-death value is established and reported, see our guide to the step-up in basis and the date-of-death appraisal guide. For what else an heir owes by asset type, see our inheritance tax guide.

Worked example: three heirs, a $480,000 house, one wants out (our arithmetic)

Every dollar figure below is hypothetical except the rules cited. The house was worth $480,000 at the date of death and is inherited in equal thirds by three siblings, so each third has a basis of $160,000 (26 U.S.C. 1014(a)(1)). One sibling asks the court for a sale. The court-ordered appraisal values the whole parcel at $510,000 (hypothetical). The script that produces every number is saved as worked_example.py with its output.

Now the same third if no one buys and the property is sold. In Florida’s text an open-market sale starts at a price no lower than the determined value (64.210(2)), so a lower price comes from an auction (the old Part I route, or ordered under 64.210(4)(c)) or from a listing that draws no offer at that value and ends with the court approving the highest offer. The table shows what a lower price does to each heir’s third. The discounts are assumptions to show the sensitivity; we have no data on what partition sales fetch.

Two limits on the example. Costs of sale, legal fees, carrying costs and the sibling who lived in the house are left out, and we do not cover whether a loss on inherited personal-use property is deductible. What the statutes do say about money between the owners is narrow: Florida adds an equitable accounting (64.206), the Florida and New York open-market sections let the court appoint a broker and “establish a reasonable commission”, South Carolina leaves the split of the appraisal cost to the court’s discretion, and Virginia taxes the appraisal as costs.

How long the buyout takes

Using Florida’s text (64.206 and 64.207), the earliest sequence is: notice of the appraisal within 10 days after it is filed; a value hearing not sooner than 31 days after that notice; then notice of the buyout right, 45 days to elect, and a payment date set not sooner than 60 days after the buyout notice. The payment date alone therefore falls at least 91 days after the appraisal notice (31 + 60, our arithmetic), before any continuance. The District of Columbia has the same 31-and-60 structure (16-2934 and 16-2935); Texas, Montana and Missouri use 30 and 60.

What a reader can do with this

These are the decision points the texts put in front of a co-owner or heir; they are not instructions for any one situation.

• Check the label first. The buyout applies only if the court finds the property is heirs property (or, in the District of Columbia, a tenancy in common). A deed that is in the names of unrelated investors, or an agreement “in a record binding all the cotenants” on how to partition, can take the property outside the definition (Florida 64.202(6)(a)). Our guide on tenants in common and joint tenancy covers how the title was taken.
• Know who may buy and at what price. A cotenant who did not request the sale can elect to buy the interest of the cotenant who did, at the court’s value of the parcel times the requester’s fraction. A cotenant who asked for the sale cannot buy under this section (Florida 64.207(1)). If the court’s value looks wrong, the objection window is 30 days after the appraisal notice in the states where we read it.
• Get the date-of-death value on paper before anything is sold. A sale shortly after death is long-term by statute (1223(9)); the gain or loss is measured from the value at death, so the number that matters is the one in the estate file. See probate for real estate for when title reaches the heirs.
• Compare the buyout price with the sale price after costs, not with the appraisal. The statutes fix the buyout price by formula; a sale price depends on the market and on whether the court orders an open-market sale, sealed bids or an auction.
• Rental co-owners who are not related have fewer rights than heirs. Outside the District of Columbia, the 20 percent relatives test decides whether the buyout and open-market rules apply. If a co-owner’s next step is to exit a rental, see drop and swap for the tax structure investors use.
• Use a local real-estate or probate attorney for the filing. The deadlines above run from court notices, and they differ by state.

A cotenant who did not request the sale can elect to buy the interest of the cotenant who did, and the dollar gap between that price and a forced sale is the reason to take a second look at the whole position before a court date. An adviser can run the sale proceeds, the basis and the rest of your plan; the partition itself needs an attorney licensed where the property sits. The adviser match below is a referral, and we may be paid if you use it.

FAQ

Sources, read and saved on October 24, 2026: Uniform Law Commission, Partition of Heirs Property Act community page and its bill tracker (my.uniformlaws.org), and the ULC Current Acts list, P (uniformlaws.org); Texas S.B. 499, 85th Legislature, enrolled (capitol.texas.gov); Florida Statutes 2025, chapter 64, parts I and II (flsenate.gov); Connecticut Public Act 15-234 (cga.ct.gov); D.C. Code title 16, chapter 29 (code.dccouncil.gov); Maryland 2022 Laws chapter 402 (mgaleg.maryland.gov); New Mexico Statutes 42-5A-7 (FindLaw copy); Utah Code 78B-6-1275 (le.utah.gov); Alabama SB 162, 2014 Regular Session (alison.legislature.state.al.us); South Carolina Act 153 of 2016 (scstatehouse.gov); Laws of Washington 2023 chapter 6 (lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov); New Jersey P.L. 2025, c. 88 (pub.njleg.gov, Internet Archive copy); Illinois Public Act 101-0520 (ilga.gov, Internet Archive copy); Nevada NRS 39.675 (Nevada.Public.Law copy); California AB 633, chaptered text (farmlandinfo.org copy); Montana Code Annotated 2025, 70-29, part 4 (archive.legmt.gov); Revised Statutes of Missouri 528.700 to 528.740 (revisor.mo.gov); New York RPAPL 993 (nysenate.gov, Internet Archive copy); Code of Virginia 8.01-81.1 (law.lis.virginia.gov); 26 U.S.C. 1, 121, 1012, 1014, 1223 and 1411 (law.cornell.edu); Rev. Proc. 2025-32 and IRS Publication 551 (Rev. December 2025) (irs.gov). Texas’s official statute site did not render for automated requests, so the Texas row reads the enrolled 2017 act; later amendments to Texas chapter 23A were not checked. Other states’ statutes were not verified and are not counted. Dollar figures in the worked example, the appraisal value and the sale discounts are hypothetical; percentages, sums and the 91-day figure are our arithmetic. This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal or tax advice.