Buying a Family Home in Morocco With Siblings: Co-Ownership Done Properly

Indivision means each of you owns a fraction of the whole property, not a physical piece of it. Three siblings inheriting a house in equal shares each own a third of every wall, every room and every square metre of the plot, not one floor each. Nobody can point to a door and call it theirs alone until the property is formally split.

Under article 971 of the 1913 Code of Obligations and Contracts, the co-owner or co-owners holding more than three-quarters of the shares between them can act alone on ordinary management and conservation acts, such as bringing an eviction case against a tenant. That majority cannot sell the property, mortgage it, or pull it down. Those are acts of disposal, and they need every co-owner's signature. A sale pushed through without one holdout's agreement is exposed to nullity.

This is the article that actually drives everything else. Article 27 of the Code des droits réels, Law 39-08, states plainly that no one can be compelled to remain in indivision and that any co-owner may request partition at any time, with any clause to the contrary treated as void.

There is one way round it, and only one. Co-owners can agree in writing to stay in indivision for a fixed period, and that agreement only binds the people who signed it, or whoever succeeds them, for the length of time stated. Even then, the same article lets a court end the agreement early, before that period runs out, if one co-owner shows a legitimate reason to.

If everyone agrees, article 25 of the same code lets you partition the property however suits the family, provided the deed follows the law and current regulations. In practice that means one of three outcomes: the property is physically divided if that is genuinely possible, one sibling keeps it and pays the others a soulte, a balancing cash payment that the code itself recognises as the counterpart to an unequal split, or the family sells to an outside buyer and divides the proceeds.

Article 314 sets the conditions for any partition to be valid: the property has to belong to the co-owners at the time it happens, be capable of division, and not lose the use each portion is meant to have once it is split. An amicable deed is not bulletproof once signed either. Article 315 lets any co-owner have it annulled within a year if their consent was flawed, or if what they received is worth at least a third less than their real share, measured at the time of the partition.

The deed itself is drawn up by the same notary or adoul who would handle an ordinary sale, depending on whether the property carries a registered title, and then has to be recorded against that title before it means anything to anyone outside the family.

When agreement fails, article 26 lets the co-owner who wants out take the case to court, which carries out the partition under the law rather than by consent. Two rules make this route slower than the amicable one by design. Article 316 says the case is only admissible if it is brought against every co-owner, and if the property is registered, it needs a prior annotation on the title before the claim can even proceed.

Where the property can be split without ruining it, article 317 has the court appoint a topographer to value it and draw up real portions, which are then handed out among the co-owners by drawing lots rather than by choice. Where it genuinely cannot be divided, or splitting it would seriously reduce its value, article 318 orders it sold at public auction instead, with the proceeds shared by ownership share. That auction, under article 319, only happens once the partition judgment has exhausted the ordinary routes of appeal, including a final appeal to the Court of Cassation if one is lodged.

A co-owner does not need anyone's permission to sell their own undivided share, but the rest of the family is not left exposed to a stranger buying into the property. Article 292 of the Code des droits réels gives every other co-owner the right to buy back that portion themselves, at the price actually paid plus the contract costs, in preference to the outside buyer.

Two details matter in practice. Under article 296, a co-owner exercising this right has to take the whole portion sold or none of it, there is no partial buy-back. And under article 304, the buyer can notify the family once their purchase is registered, starting a 30-day clock from the date the notice is personally received. Miss that window and the right lapses. Stay unaware of the sale entirely and the right still expires, after one year from registration if the family finds out, or after four years from the contract date if they never do. Going quiet, or being hard to reach from abroad, is the most common way a family loses this right without ever meaning to.

If you are the one paying a soulte to buy your siblings out, that money has to move the same way any other property payment does: a traceable bank-to-bank transfer into an account in your own name in Morocco, not cash and not routed through someone else's account. The partition deed is the paper trail that justifies the transfer, so get it drafted before you send anything.

If you cannot be in Morocco to sign on the day itself, a power of attorney lets a lawyer or someone you trust sign in your place, but it only works if it is drawn up and registered in the right form. Confirm that with the notary or adoul handling the deed before you assume it will cover you, and settle who inherited which share in the first place by checking how Moroccan succession law decided it, since that is what fixes everyone's portion before any partition can begin.