Partition of Co-Owned Property under Jordanian Law: Division, Sale by Auction and the Co-Owners' Threshold
Co-owned property is often the family home or the heirs' land, and over the years it turns from shared wealth into a frozen dispute: one co-owner wants to sell, another refuses, and a third lives in the property or uses it alone. Real Estate Ownership Law No. 13 of 2019 and its amendments, most recently amending Law No. 17 of 2026, moved partition from the courts to administrative committees with judicial jurisdiction in the land registration directorates, and made the proportion of the shares each party owns directly affect the outcome. Whether a co-owner ends up with a separated plot in their own name, with the price of their share after an expert's valuation, or with their portion of the proceeds of a sale by public auction is usually decided by choices made in the early stages of the file. That is why the position is built from the start with a lawyer who specializes in property disputes.
1. Co-Ownership Is Temporary, and No Co-Owner Can Make It Permanent
Co-ownership means that several people own a single property in undivided shares, so each owns a proportion of every part of it without holding a specific plot. Partition is the ending of that state, so that each co-owner leaves with either a separated share registered in their name or the price of their share. Its most common forms in Jordan are property that passes to the heirs on the death of the deceased, land bought together by relatives or partners, and a building on one plot with several floors and several owners.
The Jordanian Civil Code No. 43 of 1976 sets general rules for common ownership, but partition of real property is now governed by special provisions of the Real Estate Ownership Law in Articles 94 to 120. Article 94 provides that co-ownership ends in one of two ways: the co-owners dispose of the property by a transfer of ownership, or it is divided among them, each in proportion to their share.
The rule on which a lawyer builds an understanding of the file is Article 100(a): a co-owner of a co-owned property may request its partition, and none of the other co-owners has the right to refuse that request. The refusing co-owner therefore cannot keep the others in co-ownership forever. All they can do is influence how it ends and the value each party leaves with, and these two questions are where the lawyer's work is concentrated.
2. From the Magistrates' Court to the Partition Committee
For decades, actions to divide jointly owned immovable property fell within the jurisdiction of the Magistrates' Courts under Law No. 48 of 1953, and they took years between the Magistrates' Court, appeal and cassation. The Real Estate Ownership Law of 2019 then repealed that law and moved jurisdiction to the real property partition committees formed in the registration directorates under Article 104, chaired by an employee of the Department of Lands and Survey, with two members from the registration directorate staff, one a legal officer and the other a surveyor. They work under the Real Property Partition Committees Regulation No. 145 of 2019.
The Jordanian Court of Cassation, in Decision No. 4326/2021 dated October 6, 2021, described this committee as an administrative body with judicial jurisdiction, and held that an appeal against its final decisions lies before the Court of First Instance within whose territorial jurisdiction the property lies, in its capacity as a court of first instance. Article 114 provides that the court hears the appeal through full pleadings and that its decision is final.
This means that a partition file no longer passes through three levels of litigation that allow mistakes to be corrected one after another. Its owner faces a committee and then a single appeal, and what is not raised before the committee or in the appeal may never get another chance to be raised.
3. The Ways Co-Ownership Ends and What Each Co-Owner Leaves With
Not every file ends the same way. The route depends on whether the co-owners agree or disagree, and on whether the property and its shares can be divided. The following table compares the routes the Real Estate Ownership Law lays down:
| Route to end co-ownership | When it is available | Legal basis | What the co-owner leaves with | Where the risk lies |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Consensual partition | All co-owners agree to divide | Articles 102(a) and 105 | A separated share in the form they agreed on | Drafting the agreement and the partition map, and representing a minor or absent co-owner with the permission of the competent religious court (Article 101) |
| Partition by subdivision through the committee | The co-owners disagree and the property can be divided | Articles 102(a), 103 and 106 | An independent plot equal in value to their share, with a cash difference where the shares are not equal | Valuing the shares by shape, area, zoning and location, and allotting them by agreement or by drawing lots |
| Sale by agreement of all | All co-owners agree to sell | Article 95 | Their portion of the price according to their share | Setting the price and the buyer |
| Purchase of shares by co-owners | Some co-owners request disposal and division is not possible | Articles 96 and 97 | The price of their share as valued by an expert, or additional shares they buy | The value the expert sets, and bidding among the co-owners where they disagree |
| Sale by public auction | The refusing co-owners do not state their position, or refuse to buy, in the cases the text specifies | Article 97(a) | Their portion of the auction proceeds | The whole property sold at a price that may be lower than what partition or a consensual sale could have achieved |
The text gives the co-owners priority over outsiders before a public auction is reached. Where the shares cannot be divided, the share of the co-owner requesting disposal is valued by an expert and the co-owners are invited to buy it at the valued price. If more than one wishes to buy, it is sold to them equally, and if one of them objects and offers a higher price, the share is put to auction among the co-owners and awarded to the highest bidder. The committee decides on a sale by public auction only if the refusing co-owners do not state their position or the matter ends in the cases the text specifies. The lawyer assesses which of these routes best suits a particular co-owner from the size of their share, the nature of the property and its market value.
4. The Three-Quarters Threshold: Which Way the Scales Tip
The law gives the proportion of shares a weight that changes the course of the whole file. Under Article 103, where the co-owners cannot all agree on partition and there are justified reasons for it, partition may be requested and referred to the partition committee. If the request comes from the owners of three-quarters of the shares or more, it is served on the other co-owners: if they approve, the partition is carried out, and if they refuse or do not state their view, the partition is executed, and they keep the right to bring an action for compensation for the harm done to the value of their separated shares within a short period the text sets from the date the partition is registered.
If the request is made by owners of less than three-quarters of the shares and the others do not approve it, it is referred to the committee to consider. The text lays down a similar rule in Article 96 for a request to dispose of the property by selling it.
Then came amending Law No. 17 of 2026, published in the Official Gazette in September 2026 and read together with the original law as a single law. It lowered the consent required to divide properties with buildings on them from unanimity of the co-owners to the approval of the owners of three-quarters of the shares, and gave the partition committees the power to value the shares and decide the financial disputes connected with them, while their decisions remain open to appeal before the Court of First Instance.
For the majority, this threshold gives the power to proceed with partition without waiting for the minority's consent, but a request made without meeting its conditions or without proving the justified reasons may become an opening for an appeal that delays the file. For the minority, the room to object narrows, and usually all that remains is to contest the valuation and the balancing between the shares and to claim compensation in time. Where a co-owner stands between these two positions, and whether it serves them better to be the one requesting partition, the one objecting to it or the one buying the others' shares, depends on how the shares are distributed, the number of heirs and the nature of the property, and that is itself a legal point that merits consultation before replying to any notice.
5. Valuation and Balancing the Shares: Where the File Is Won or Lost
Most of the dispute in partition files is about value. Article 106 provides that the property to be divided is surveyed and the co-owners' shares are then separated after they are balanced against each other, taking into account the factors that raise or lower their value, such as their shape, area, type of zoning, soil quality and prominence of location. The shares are valued by agreement, and if the co-owners do not agree, one or more experts are appointed to value them. The separated shares are then allotted by agreement or by drawing lots, and if a share turns out to be unequal in value to the others, the balance must be made up by adding an amount of cash to it.
Two plots of equal area can differ greatly in value if one is on the street and the other at the back, or if one carries the existing building. At this stage the lawyer examines the expert report itself: the grounds on which the expert based the valuation, how far it took account of location and zoning, and whether it reflects the actual market value of the share, because objecting to a valuation once the file has settled is much harder than contesting it while it is being prepared. The same is true of a sale to the co-owners, since the price of the share rests on a value an expert sets, so a low valuation is a direct loss to the seller and a high one a burden on the co-owner who wants to buy.
Practical note: The partition provisions were amended by amending Law No. 17 of 2026 after years of applying the original law, and the lawyer relies on the text in force when the request is made and on what the Court of First Instance and the Court of Cassation settle on in appeals against committee decisions, not on what was done in earlier files. Do not reply to any notice from the partition committee, and do not sign any partition or valuation record, before having the file reviewed or consulting a specialist lawyer.
6. Situations That Make a Co-Ownership File More Complex
Some co-ownership files look simple and then turn out to raise questions that need careful legal assessment. Among the most frequent:
A minor or absent person among the co-owners. Article 101 provides that a person lacking or deprived of legal capacity, or an absent or missing person, is represented in the partition by their guardian, tutor or curator, after that representative obtains permission from the competent religious court, whether Sharia or ecclesiastical. In this case the land file is tied to a proceeding before another court, and any defect in it affects the validity of the partition itself.
A building one co-owner put up on the co-owned land. When a co-owner builds on shared land with their own money, the question arises of the building's effect on the valuation of the shares and on the allotment of the plot it stands on, and this is often linked to a dispute over ownership itself, set out in detail in the article The Lawsuit to Prove Property Ownership in Jordan.
A mortgage or attachment on one co-owner's share. A mortgage or attachment on a co-owner's share brings new parties into the file and raises the question of whether that encumbrance moves to the separated share or to the price.
Earlier dispositions of the property. It may emerge during the file that a co-owner disposed of their share, or of part of the property, by a transaction whose validity is disputed, so that challenging that transaction must come before the partition. The article Nullity of Property Transactions Under Jordanian Law sets out the grounds of that nullity and the court's powers over it.
7. Appealing the Committee's Decision Is a Single Chance
The partition committee's final decisions may be appealed before the Court of First Instance within whose jurisdiction the property lies, within a short period the law sets from the issue of the decision or its service. The court hears the appeal through full pleadings, and its decision is final under Article 114. The appeal is therefore the only chance to have the decision reviewed by a court, and its grounds rest on what happened before the committee in notices, valuations and objections.
That is why the lawyer follows the file before the committee from the start, recording the client's objections at the right time and requesting any expert examination or clarification needed, so that when the file reaches the court the appeal has something to rest on. The compensation claim the law allows a co-owner whose property was divided or disposed of despite their refusal is a separate action with its own period and conditions, and the lawyer assesses whether it is worthwhile based on the difference between the value of the separated share and what the co-owner was entitled to.
8. Frequently Asked Questions
Can one of the heirs prevent partition?
No. Article 100(a) of the Real Estate Ownership Law provides that a co-owner may request the partition of the co-owned property, and none of the other co-owners has the right to refuse that request. The objecting co-owner can contest the method of partition and the valuation, but cannot keep the property in co-ownership against the others' will.
Which authority handles partition in Jordan?
Since Real Estate Ownership Law No. 13 of 2019 came into force, requests are heard by the real property partition committees formed in the registration directorates, whereas partition actions used to fall within the jurisdiction of the Magistrates' Courts. Their decisions are appealed before the Court of First Instance within whose jurisdiction the property lies.
What does the three-quarters-of-the-shares threshold mean in partition?
If the owners of three-quarters of the shares or more request partition, it is carried out even if the other co-owners refuse it or remain silent, and those co-owners keep the right to claim compensation for harm to the value of their separated shares (Article 103). Amending Law No. 17 of 2026 extended this threshold to the division of properties with buildings on them, which used to require unanimity.
When is co-owned property sold by public auction?
Where the shares cannot be divided, the law offers the share of the co-owner requesting disposal to the co-owners first at the value the expert sets, and an auction may be held among them. The committee decides on a sale by public auction only if the refusing co-owners do not state their position or the file ends in the cases the text specifies (Article 97).
Is a partition valid if one of the heirs is a minor?
Yes. The minor's guardian or tutor acts in their place after obtaining permission from the competent religious court, whether Sharia or ecclesiastical (Article 101). Any defect in that permission or in the representation may affect the validity of the partition.
Can the partition committee's decision be appealed?
Yes, before the Court of First Instance within whose jurisdiction the property lies, within a short period the law sets. The court hears the appeal through full pleadings and its decision is final (Article 114). That is why the appeal is built on what was recorded before the committee from the start of the file.
Legal Consultation
A partition file is among the most sensitive property disputes: for the co-owner who wants to leave the co-ownership, what they obtain depends on choosing the right route and on an accurate valuation, and the refusing co-owner or the holder of a small share may have a partition or a sale imposed on them at a price that does not reflect the value of their share if it is not properly defended in time. Because the committee's decision can be reviewed only by a single, final appeal, mistakes made in service, valuation or replies are hard to remedy once the file has settled. For a specialist legal consultation in property disputes and civil cases, or to read how this file connects with the action to stop interference with the use of property when one co-owner takes the use of the shared property for themselves, and with the property seizure procedure under the Jordanian Enforcement Law when a co-owner's share is attached for a debt they owe, you can contact Alabwini Law Firm & Legal Consultancy.
