Opinion ID: 1059090
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Partition by Life Tenant as to the Remaindermen

Text: Partition is governed by statute in Virginia. Code § 8.01-81 provides that [t]enants in common, joint tenants, executors with the power to sell, and coparceners of real property . . . shall be compellable to make partition and may compel partition. Tenants in common can thus compel partition and are compellable to partition under the statute. But as we recognized in Whitby, the statute does not explicitly authorize a life tenant to compel partition. 243 Va. at 22, 413 S.E.2d at 43. Recognizing this fact, Maitland argues that her status as a tenant in common with Allen as to the life estate in all the real property is sufficient to compel partition of the whole estate under our decision in Carneal. We disagree. The case at bar is factually indistinguishable from that before us in Whitby. The party seeking partition of the remainder interest in Whitby was the surviving joint life tenant. 243 Va. at 21, 413 S.E.2d at 42. While Maitland does have a joint life tenant in else (Allen), this is a distinction without a difference. Maitland is not a tenant in common with the remaindermen, and it is only that relationship which determines whether partition may lie as to the remainder. [1] Distinguishing Corneal, we reviewed and answered this issue in Whitby: [I]n the present case, unlike Carneal, the life tenant seeks to establish a tenancy in common between the life tenant and the remaindermen in the life tenant's undivided moiety . . . Here, the remaindermen have no right to hold and occupy the land in question because the surviving life tenant has not died. In Carneal, both the life tenant and the fee simple owners of the other undivided moiety had the right to hold and occupy the land because there existed two separate undivided moieties in the property and the title to each was held by different owners. In order for a life tenant to be a tenant in common with other owners of the property there must be coequal rights of occupancy, and such rights are not present in this case. Because this life tenant is not a tenant in common with the remaindermen, it follows that he has no right to compel partition of the property against the owners of the remainder interest . . . . Whitby, 243 Va. at 24, 413 S.E.2d at 44. The Supreme Court of Colorado recently reached the same conclusion in Beach v. Beach, 74 P.3d 1 (Colo.2003), holding that partition could not lie by a life tenant against the remaindermen: [P]artition applies only to concurrent interests, meaning interests that are held simultaneously in time. Thus, a present life estate cannot be partitioned from a future remainder interest because the holders of the two interests possess the property successively, rather than concurrently. . . . . By definition, the holder of a present life estate and the holder of a future remainder interest do not own concurrent interests because each holder uses the property exclusively during her respective time of possession. Although the holders of the life estate and successive remainder interest do share a common interest in the property, this variety of simultaneously existent interests does not constitute the concurrent ownership, the splitting of which is the function of partition. Id. at 3 (citation omitted). Because Maitland and the children as remaindermen hold the successive estates of a life tenancy and a remainder interest, they are not tenants in common and thus partition does not lie. Carnal is not authority to the contrary and is limited to its specific facts. Accordingly, the trial court did not err in granting summary judgment to the children.