A partition agreement divides, or partitions, a married couple's community estate into two separate estates. It is sometimes called a post-nuptial or post-marital agreement and is similar to a prenuptial agreement, except that it is executed by a married couple.
PARTITION. A joint owner or claimant of real property or an interest in real property or a joint owner of personal property may compel a partition of the interest or the property among the joint owners or claimants under this chapter and the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure.
A partition agreement does not have to be approved by the court as just and right. In addition to being in writing and signed by both parties, a partition agreement must either specifically reference “partition” or show the parties' intent to convert the property from community property to separate property.
Every co-owner of an interest in the property (no matter how small) must agree in order for a voluntary partition to occur. The remedy when agreement cannot be reached is for one or more of the co-owners to seek a court-ordered division by means of a partition suit.
Most people know that Texas is a community property state. Many people also assume that all community property has to be divided equally in the event of a divorce. However, property can be community, separate, quasi-community or mixed character, depending on when and how it was acquired.
The party seeking the partition action can ask the court to award them attorney's fees and costs from the opposing party or from the proceeds from the sale of the property. The parties also may be able to recover payments they had made that were in addition to their ownership interest.
Any co-owner has the right to file a partition action. A person who owns even a tiny fraction of joint property has standing to ask the court to divide the property or order a sale of the property to fairly divide the proceeds.
There are two potential pathways in seeking a partition: Partitions may be in kind (meaning that property is divided into separate parcels and each parcel is allotted to a separate owner) or by sale (meaning that property is sold and sale proceeds are divided among the owners).