Owning a house with other people has real advantages, the financial burden gets shared, and so does the work of maintaining it. But problems show up fast when it’s time to sell. I see this constantly in two situations: divorcing co-owners who can’t agree on next steps, and siblings who inherited a house together and now have to decide what to do with it. The selling process itself is the same as any home sale, but getting everyone to agree on price, timing, and method is where things get complicated.
Find Out Exactly How the Title Is Held
The two most common structures are joint tenancy and tenancy in common. Joint tenancy usually comes with a right of survivorship, meaning a deceased owner’s share passes automatically to the surviving owners rather than through their estate. Tenancy in common doesn’t work that way, each owner’s share passes according to their own will or the state’s inheritance rules, and shares don’t have to be equal.
In Washington, if the deed doesn’t specify how title is held, courts generally default to tenancy in common. Pull the actual deed from the King County Recorder’s Office if you’re not sure, guessing wrong here can change how a sale needs to be structured.
How to Reach an Agreement
All co-owners generally need to agree to sell, or at minimum consent to the terms of the sale. When everyone’s aligned, this is straightforward. When one owner wants to sell and another doesn’t, or you can’t agree on price, that’s when I see deals stall out for months or longer.
Getting everyone on a single call early, rather than negotiating through separate conversations, tends to resolve disagreements faster than letting positions harden over weeks of back-and-forth.
Legal Issues
If co-owners genuinely can’t agree, Washington law (RCW 7.52) allows any owner to file a partition action asking the court to force a sale and divide the proceeds. It’s a real option, but it’s also slow and expensive, attorney fees and court costs come out of the sale proceeds before anyone sees a dollar.
Most co-owners are better off avoiding partition court entirely if there’s any path to agreement, since the legal costs alone can eat a meaningful chunk of everyone’s share.
The Investor Advantage
Selling directly to a buyer like me sidesteps a lot of what makes co-owned sales difficult. There’s one offer for everyone to review together, no staging or showings to coordinate across multiple households, and a closing date that doesn’t depend on a buyer’s financing falling into place. I can also write the purchase agreement to reflect each owner’s share directly, so proceeds are split cleanly at closing.
What Happens If One Owner Won’t Respond at All
Sometimes the holdup isn’t disagreement, it’s a co-owner who’s gone quiet, moved out of state, or simply won’t engage. Before heading to a partition action, it’s worth having an attorney send a formal demand letter, which resolves more of these situations than people expect once there’s a real deadline attached. If that still doesn’t work, I can also structure an offer around the owners who are ready to move, with your attorney handling the rest.
Joint Tenancy vs. Tenancy in Common: Why the Difference Matters
How exactly the title is held changes what happens with an unresponsive or deceased co-owner, and most people don’t know which one they actually have until they pull the recorded deed. Joint tenancy with right of survivorship means if one owner dies, their share passes automatically to the surviving owner, bypassing probate entirely, which is common between spouses or siblings who bought together. Tenancy in common is different: each owner holds a separate, distinct share that can be sold, gifted, or passed to their own heirs independently, meaning a deceased co-owner’s share goes through their estate and probate, not automatically to the other owner. Washington actually presumes tenancy in common by default unless the deed specifically states joint tenancy with right of survivorship.
This distinction matters directly for selling. If it’s joint tenancy and one owner has passed away, the survivor typically just needs a certified death certificate recorded to clear title and sell without involving probate at all. If it’s tenancy in common, the deceased owner’s heirs now hold that share and have to be brought into the sale, sign off, and receive their portion of the proceeds, which can mean adding an entirely new set of people to a transaction that started with just two or three owners. Pulling the actual recorded deed early, rather than assuming based on how the owners think of the property, saves real time down the line.
If you co-own a house in the Seattle area and need everyone aligned on a sale, call (206) 900-8173 or send us a message and I’ll get all the owners on one call to walk through the numbers.