Shashank Sundar (n.a.) 18 July 2012

Partition claim, the process and rights of individuals

Dear Sir / Madam,

We are three brothers and both our parents have died. Unfortunately there is no will from anyone. I am advised to file partition claim from one of friends who is a legal consultant.

Some case history,

There are two flats in the name of our parents (mother). 1st brother stays in US and is citizen of US. 2nd brother stays in India but does not disclose his address details. He sometimes replies to email.

1st and 3rd brothers are ok with division of property into equal share, however the 2nd brother claims that he should be owning the entire property, since it was mothers last wish. He (2nd brother) claims that he has something in writing (offcourse it is not will) from mother.

Questions are as below,

1) If I (3rd brother) file a partition suite, can he ask court to do the auction of our properties and divide the funds into 3 brothers ?

2) If 2nd brother does not disclose his address, how to serve legal notice ?

3) Can any of the brothers bring stay on partition suite ? if so for what reasons court will consider the stay ?

4) Can we ask court to fix a basic value, before auction of the each property on production of valuation report ?

Thanks in advance,

Shashank

Reply Follow

2 Replies

surjit singh (Assistant) 24 July 2012

As regard partition suit there cannot be a stay on partition by the court, You can approach the court for partition of your share of property i.e 1/3 share. You can send the notice to the address of the near relative of your brother or to the address of the wife of your brother, if the address is not known to you. You can also bring it to the notice of the court about the e-mail of your brother. Partition cannot be done without giving notice to your brothers, because you are claiming partition against your brother. As regard sending notice to your brother in US it can be done through the Indian embassy since he was an Indian and now has acquired US citizenship. You have to do your homework for getting the ordinary address of your brothers before approaching the court for partition.

Shashank Sundar (n.a.) 27 July 2012

Dear Surjit Singh ji,

Thanks for your kind reply. I got information about how to file for partition claim suite. However please help to reply on how to work with court proceedings.

If I am filing the suite for partition of properties, can we ask the court to do the auction of these one by one and sell the properties, and during auction can we fix the basic price as per market value or valuation report obtained from govt. approved valuers ?

I have got complete understanding how I will have to serve notices to my brothers.

However as I said if one of the brother refuses to give address (contactable only via email), what would be my options to serve him notice ? I am sorry to ask again as you have already replied, however I wish to know if there is any provision in law to help such cases.

Thanks once again for your kind help,

Shashank Tambe