Dominguez v. Suarez
Three co-owners each held an undivided one-third interest in an indivisible single-family home. Instead of ordering partition by sale, the trial court crafted a remedy requiring the appellee to take out a reverse mortgage, distribute the net proceeds, and deed herself an enhanced life estate with remainder to appellants. The Third DCA reversed, holding partition is a matter of right absent pleaded and proven manifest injustice, fraud, oppression, waiver, or estoppel, and that the court's improvised remedy was outside the pleadings and unauthorized by Chapter 64.
Key facts
- Three co-owners each held an undivided one-third interest in a single-family home that could not be divided in kind.
- The trial court denied partition by sale and instead ordered the appellee to take out a reverse mortgage, distribute net proceeds to the other owners, and retain an enhanced life estate in the property.
- +2 more key facts with a free trial
Why it matters
Useful authority for practitioners litigating co-ownership disputes: it forecloses trial courts from inventing creative equitable substitutes for statutory partition and reinforces that defenses to partition must be… — full analysis with a trial
Read the full opinion, holdings & search — free for 30 days
The full opinion PDF, the rules the court applied, our significance analysis, the background facts, and full-text search across every tracked Florida decision — in your hands.
- Search every tracked Florida decision in seconds
- Save, tag & file the cases that matter into your own library
- Read the full plain-English analysis and holdings
Not ready to sign up? Get the free Friday digest — the week's key Florida decisions by email, no login required.
Florida Court Tracker provides summaries of publicly available court opinions for informational and research purposes only. This is not legal advice and does not create an attorney–client relationship. Always verify holdings against the official opinion.