Co-owning a property in Spain with your ex or your siblings: how to get out of a proindiviso

Two people bought a flat in Los Cristianos together, separated, and no longer speak. Three siblings inherit their mother's house in Corralejo: one lives in it, one wants to sell, and the third lives in Hamburg and is tired of paying a third of the bills of a house she never uses. The first is what Spanish lawyers call a proindiviso, an undivided co-ownership, and the second becomes one as soon as the estate is divided. The law treats both as temporary: any owner can end the situation at any time, whatever the others think. What the others can influence is how it ends, and whether the property is sold at a market price or goes to auction depends on whether they manage to agree. This note explains the rules while the co-ownership lasts, the ways out with and without a court as they stand in October 2026, and what changes when the other owner is a former partner or a brother or sister.

What a proindiviso is

The Civil Code defines it in one line: Hay comunidad cuando la propiedad de una cosa o un derecho pertenece pro indiviso a varias personas, there is a community when the ownership of a thing or a right belongs undivided to several persons (article 392). Nobody owns the kitchen or the upper floor. Each co-owner owns a share of the whole, and the shares are presumed equal unless something else is proved (article 393), which is why the deed, and not the memory of who paid what, is the starting point.

While the co-ownership lasts, the Code gives five rules. Benefits and burdens are shared in proportion to the shares (article 393). Each co-owner may use the property according to its purpose, without harming the common interest or preventing the others from using it (article 394). Any of them can oblige the rest to contribute to the costs of conservation (article 395). Nobody may alter the property without the consent of the others, even where the change would benefit all (article 397). And decisions on administration are taken by the majority of shares, not of heads; where there is no majority, or its decision seriously harms the rest, the judge decides and may even appoint an administrator (article 398).

Nobody is obliged to stay

The rule that governs everything else is article 400: Ningún copropietario estará obligado a permanecer en la comunidad. Cada uno de ellos podrá pedir en cualquier tiempo que se divida la cosa común, no co-owner shall be obliged to remain in the community, and each of them may ask at any time for the common thing to be divided. Between co-owners the action never lapses (article 1965), and the Supreme Court's case law calls it indiscutible por los demás partícipes, incondicional e imprescriptible, beyond dispute by the other co-owners, unconditional and not subject to limitation (judgment 164/2026, of 4 February, recalling earlier ones). «I do not want to sell» is not a defence. What the court is asked to decide, the same judgment recalls, is no ya la división, que es indiscutible, sino el modo de practicarse: not the division, which is beyond dispute, but the way of carrying it out.

The Code allows one brake: an agreement to keep the property undivided por tiempo determinado, que no exceda de diez años, for a fixed time not exceeding ten years, which a new agreement can extend (article 400). A couple who buy together, or siblings who decide to keep a parent's house for a while, can use it. Nobody can be tied for ever.

Three ways out without a judge

• One co-owner buys the others out. A property that cannot be divided can go to one of them a calidad de abonar a los otros el exceso en dinero, on condition of paying the others the excess in money (articles 404 and 1062). The agreement goes into a notarial deed, which is what the Land Registry records. Where there is a mortgage, the deed does not release the owner who leaves: a debtor can be replaced only with the creditor's consent (article 1205), so the bank has to agree as well.
• Everyone sells to a third party. Each co-owner can sell only what is theirs, so all of them sign, and the price, less what is owed on the property, is shared by shares.
• A voluntary auction. It serves when all agree to sell but not on the price or the buyer, and can be held before a notary (Ley del Notariado, articles 72 to 75) or through the court clerk of the place where the property is, in a file that needs neither a lawyer nor a court representative, the procurador (Ley 15/2015, articles 108 to 111). Both are electronic and run on the Auction Portal of the Official State Gazette. Before a notary the valuation is the floor and no lower bid is admitted, bidding stays open for at least twenty calendar days, outside bidders deposit 5 per cent of the value and co-owners nothing, and if nobody bids the file is closed and the owners are where they were.

The Code also lets the co-owners entrust the division to arbitrators or «amicable compounders» of their choice (article 402).

The claim, as it works in 2026

Negotiate first. Since 3 April 2025 a civil claim is admitted only if the claimant shows a prior attempt to settle out of court (Ley Orgánica 1/2025, article 5; Civil Procedure Act, article 403), and division claims are not among the exceptions. The attempt can be a mediation or a conciliation, and the requirement is also met when the negotiation takes place directamente por las partes, o entre sus abogados o abogadas, directly between the parties or between their lawyers. In a co-ownership the natural attempt is a written offer: «I buy your half for this figure, or you buy mine for the same». What counts as an attempt, and how to document it, is the subject of our note on the step before any lawsuit.

An oral trial, whatever the property is worth. Since 20 March 2024 the Civil Procedure Act sends to the oral trial, the juicio verbal, Aquéllas en las que se ejercite la acción de división de cosa común, the claims in which the action for the division of a common thing is brought (article 250). The court is the one of the place where the property is, wherever the owners live (article 52): by an order of 2 December 2025 the Supreme Court sent one such claim to Madrid, where the property was, and not to Pamplona, where the defendant lived.

What the judgment says. It declares the co-ownership ended and says how. If the property can be divided, each owner receives a part; a building whose features allow it can be divided into independent flats, at the request of any co-owner (article 401). If it cannot, and for the courts a property is indivisible not only when it cannot physically be split but also when dividing it would leave it useless, make it lose an abnormal part of its value or require considerable expense, then, unless the owners agree to award it to one of them who compensates the rest, se venderá y repartirá su precio, it shall be sold and its price shared out (article 404).

The judgment of 4 February 2026 shows where the line is. An industrial building in Alcoy, bought by two brothers in 1977, belonged after their deaths to their two widows and six children. One branch of the family asked for the sale; the other answered that the building could be split in two, one part for each branch, and two courts agreed. The Supreme Court did not: sin acuerdo unánime de los interesados, no es posible extinguir el condominio mediante la creación de otros condominios más reducidos, without the unanimous agreement of those concerned, a co-ownership cannot be ended by creating smaller ones. It ordered the building to be offered first to any of the parties at its value, which both sides had ended up accepting at 584,071.55 euros, and otherwise sold at a public auction open to the parties and to outsiders, salvo que las partes acuerden otro sistema de venta, unless the parties agree on another way of selling. The claim had been filed on 20 April 2015.

Enforce it. Winning is not the end. If nobody takes the property and nobody asks the court to enforce the judgment, nothing happens, and the right to enforce a judgment lapses five years after it becomes final (Civil Procedure Act, article 518). In a case the Supreme Court decided on 12 November 2025, two former spouses had obtained in 2013, from the courts of Palma de Mallorca, a judgment ordering the division of their house. Neither enforced it, and twelve years later they were still co-owners and still in court, this time over who could live in it.

The auction. It is electronic and takes place on the Auction Portal of the Official State Gazette (Civil Procedure Act, article 648; Ley 15/2015, article 111). The co-owners can bid like anyone else. And whoever buys takes the property with what it carries: the division does not harm third parties, who keep their mortgages and other rights over it (Civil Code, article 405).

While it lasts: use, bills and keys

The most common grievance is not about selling. One co-owner lives in the property, or holds the only keys, and the other pays half of everything. The Supreme Court has repeated that the use of a common property by one co-owner to the exclusion of the rest is unlawful, and that a larger share does not change that. Two remedies exist while the co-ownership lasts.

The first is to ask the court for turns. Its doctrine is that la aplicación de turnos de ocupación con uso exclusivo por periodos sucesivos y recurrentes será considerada como una fórmula justa, turns of occupation with exclusive use for successive and recurring periods will be considered a fair formula, where sharing the home is not possible or advisable and a co-owner asks for it (judgment 1602/2025, of 12 November). In that case, the one from Palma, the former wife had kept the house for herself since 2010 and had changed the locks; the courts gave each of them the house for a year at a time, starting with him. The second is eviction: co-owners can ask, for the benefit of all, that the one who occupies the property alone be made to leave it (judgment 1576/2024, of 20 November).

Money is settled separately. The costs of keeping the property, such as the property tax and necessary repairs, are shared by shares, and whoever paid more can claim the difference (articles 393 and 395). Mortgage instalments follow what the owners agreed between themselves: buying in halves points to paying in halves, the Supreme Court has said, and whoever paid more has a claim unless there is a reason that excludes it, such as a gift (judgment 168/2021, of 24 March). But the larger payment must be proved, and the man who brought that case could not show who had paid what. The division is the moment when the accounts are closed: in the Palma case the judgment of 2013 had fixed at 31,469.13 euros what he owed her for mortgage instalments, property tax and repairs, to be taken from his part of the price. His own claim for 750 euros a month while her new partner lived in the house was rejected at first instance, among other reasons because he had left the house himself and had let more than six years pass without enforcing the division, and he did not appeal. Keep the bank statements.

With a former partner

The first question is how the two of you owned it. Spouses married under separation of property and unmarried couples who bought together are ordinary co-owners. Article 400 applies from the first day, and the Civil Procedure Act even lets a spouse ask for the division inside the divorce itself, where cualquiera de los cónyuges podrá ejercer simultáneamente la acción de división de la cosa común, either spouse may bring at the same time the action for the division of the common thing, over what they hold in ordinary co-ownership (article 437).

Spouses married under gananciales, the regime that applies under the Civil Code when nothing else was agreed (article 1316), are in a different position. After the divorce a home bought for that common fund belongs to an undivided mass of assets and debts, not half to each, and the route is the liquidation of that regime, by agreement or under articles 806 and following of the Civil Procedure Act. The Supreme Court allows the direct division only where the home is the one asset left to share out (judgment 431/2024, of 1 April). For couples who married abroad the prior question is which country's rules decide who owns what, a point we touch on in our note on divorcing across borders.

If the property was the family home and a court gave its use to one of you, the co-ownership can still be ended. The doctrine is settled: la atribución del uso de la vivienda a uno de los condóminos no impide al otro el ejercicio de la acción de división, the attribution of the use of the home to one co-owner does not prevent the other from bringing the action for division. What protects the children and the parent who lives with them is la subsistencia del derecho de uso pese a la división y su oponibilidad frente al adquirente de la vivienda, that the right of use survives the division and binds whoever acquires the home (judgment 168/2021). A home auctioned with a right of use alive is worth less to any bidder, which is the practical reason to wait for the use to end, or to agree. The same judgment adds two things. The rules on the family home also protect the minor children of unmarried couples. And a use granted only until one of the parties brings the action for division does not survive it. How long a use lasts and what ends it is in our note on the family home after a divorce; what registering as a couple changes, in our note on unmarried couples.

With brothers and sisters

A house inherited by several children is not yet a proindiviso. Until the inheritance is accepted and divided, each heir holds a share of the estate as a whole, not of the house, and the way out is the partition of the estate: Ningún coheredero podrá ser obligado a permanecer en la indivisión de la herencia, no co-heir can be obliged to remain in the undivided inheritance, unless the testator expressly forbade the division (article 1051). Heirs of full age can divide as they see fit (article 1058). If they cannot agree, any of them can ask the court to do it (article 1059; Civil Procedure Act, article 782), and where the will names nobody for the task, heirs who hold at least half of the estate can ask a notary or the court clerk to appoint someone to draw up the partition (article 1057). Once the house has been awarded to the heirs in shares, article 400 applies. The Supreme Court skips the first step only where the house is the single asset of the estate (judgment 431/2024, recalling earlier ones).

The estate of one owner does not block the others. In the judgment of 26 January 2026, half of a house in Ávila belonged to an estate that had never been accepted or divided, and the other half to four people who had received their shares by gift. They sued for the division in 2016, and a provincial court dismissed the claim for lack of standing. The Supreme Court answered that the state of that inheritance no puede condicionar ni excepcionar la viabilidad de dicha acción, can neither condition nor bar the action, and that an undivided estate can be sued as such, through whoever administers it (judgment 67/2026).

And the sibling who lives in the house does not own the keys. In the judgment of 20 November 2024, three siblings sued the fourth, who lived alone in their late parents' villa in Vigo, had changed the lock, paid the bills and claimed the largest share under his mother's will. All three courts ordered him out, for the benefit of the heirs as a whole. Every co-heir has a title to possess, the court said, but ese título no ampara una posesión en exclusiva y excluyente de un bien común por uno de ellos, that title does not cover the exclusive and excluding possession of a common asset by one of them. The others, it added, have a legitimate interest in the house being empty so that it can be divided.

An heir who wants no part in any of this still has the option the Code gives every heir, to say no to the inheritance, which can only be done as a whole (article 990), with the formalities and deadlines we set out in our note on renouncing an inheritance.

Selling only your share

A share can be sold on its own. Todo condueño tendrá la plena propiedad de su parte, every co-owner has full ownership of their part, and may sell it, assign it or mortgage it (article 399); the article asks for nobody's consent. There are companies whose business is buying such shares. Expect their offers to be below the share's fraction of the market value: the buyer is buying a dispute as well, and we know of no official figure for the discount.

What the Code gives the other co-owners is not a veto but the right to take the buyer's place: El copropietario de una cosa común podrá usar del retracto en el caso de enajenarse a un extraño la parte de todos los demás condueños o de alguno de ellos, the co-owner of a common thing may use the right of redemption where the share of all or any of the other co-owners is transferred to an outsider (article 1522), on the same terms the buyer agreed (article 1521). The time is short: dentro de nueve días, contados desde la inscripción en el Registro, within nine days counted from the entry in the Land Registry or, if the sale is not registered, from the day the co-owner learned of it (article 1524), and the nine days cannot be interrupted. In the judgment of 21 October 2025 a company that owned half of a plot in Madrid found that the other half had been registered in a buyer's name on 3 April 2014, and filed its claim on 13 May: too late. Co-owners, the court recalled from an earlier case, need only watch the Registry, les bastaba estar pendientes del Registro de la Propiedad. And once a final judgment has ordered the division, the redemption is no longer available (judgment 1602/2025, recalling judgment 153/2020).

The ways out, side by side

Taxes, in one paragraph

When a property that cannot be divided goes to one co-owner who pays the others in money, the transfer tax does not treat that payment as a purchase. It taxes Los excesos de adjudicación declarados, declared excess awards, salvo los que surjan de dar cumplimiento a lo dispuesto en los artículos 821, 829, 1.056 (segundo) y 1.062 (primero) del Código Civil, except those that arise from complying with, among others, article 1062 of the Civil Code (text of the tax, article 7). The deed then falls, as a rule, under the duty on notarial documents, at the rate each region sets (article 31). What that comes to in the Canary Islands, whether the owner who leaves has a gain to declare in income tax and what the town hall charges are questions of figures, to be put to a tax adviser before signing and not after.

What our family and inheritance teams do

Our family practice deals with marital property regimes and the division of assets, by agreement wherever possible, and with the cases of unmarried couples; our inheritance practice handles disputes between heirs, negotiated or litigated, trying agreement first. Both are described on our family law and inheritance pages. If you write to us, send the Land Registry extract of the property and, if there is one, the divorce judgment or the deed of acceptance of the inheritance.

Common questions

My ex refuses to sell our flat. Can I force a sale?

Yes. No co-owner is obliged to remain one: after a documented attempt to agree, you can ask the court for the division, and if neither of you buys the other out the flat is sold at public auction and the price shared. If you were married under gananciales, that regime is liquidated first, unless the flat is the only asset left.

My brother lives in our late mother's house and will not leave or sell. What can we do?

Two things, and they can go together. Ask the court to make him leave the house for the benefit of all the heirs, because no heir may keep an inherited property for himself. And ask for the partition of the estate, after which any of you can ask for the division of the house, which for a house means a buy-out or a sale.

Can the other owner sell their half to a stranger without asking me?

Yes. But you have nine days, counted from the entry of the sale in the Land Registry, to take the buyer's place at the same price and on the same terms.

Can we agree never to divide the property?

Not for ever. An agreement to keep it undivided is valid for a fixed time of up to ten years, and can be renewed by a new agreement.

I live abroad. Where is the claim heard?

In the court of the place where the property is, whatever your country of residence and that of the other owners.

General information on the law as it stands in October 2026 (Civil Code, articles 392 to 406, 990, 1051, 1057 to 1059, 1062, 1205, 1316, 1521, 1522, 1524 and 1965; Ley de Enjuiciamiento Civil, articles 52, 250, 403, 437, 518, 648, 782 and 806; Ley 15/2015, articles 108 to 111; Ley del Notariado, articles 72 to 75; Ley Orgánica 1/2025, article 5; text of the transfer tax, articles 7 and 31; the Supreme Court's judgments 168/2021, 431/2024, 1576/2024, 1465/2025, 1602/2025, 67/2026 and 164/2026 and its order of 2 December 2025 in conflict 527/2025, read in full). It is not advice on a particular property: the deed, the marriage regime, the state of the inheritance and what the Land Registry shows decide which of these routes is open.