Co-owner Buyout Calculator: Buy Out an Heir, Spouse or Partner's Share

Authored by Carson Nordmann, Founder of Keystone Court Data. See our editorial standards.

When a house belongs to more than one person, such as heirs after a death, a divorcing couple or business partners, one owner often wants to keep it and buy the others out. Type in the value, the debts, your share and any credits the owners agree on, and the calculator works out the price of the other owners' share, the cash the buyout needs, and what each side would end up with from a market sale or a court-ordered sale instead.

The house and the owners

Example numbers are filled in. Replace each one with your own figure or estimate; every answer updates as you type.

What the house is worth

Its market value as it stands today, for example from an appraisal the owners agree on.

Mortgages and liens on it

Debts all the owners share that would have to be paid off for a sale with clear title: loan balances, liens, back taxes. A lien against only one owner goes in its own box below.

Your ownership share

What you own now. The other owners' shares are the rest, taken together. Read to 4 decimals.

Liens against only you

For example a judgment against you alone that attaches to your share. It comes out of your part, not theirs.

Liens against only the other owners

The same against them. In a buyout the calculator has you pay it off at closing out of their price. If the lien is bigger than their part, how much of it must be paid to clear the title depends on the creditor and the state.

Credit owed to you

For example mortgage, tax or repair payments you made beyond your share, if the owners agree (or a court allows) that you get it back.

Credit owed to the other owners

The same, for payments they made beyond their share, or anything else the owners agree they get back.

A market sale, a buyout and a court-ordered sale

Selling costs in a sale

% of price

Commissions, closing costs and transfer taxes if the house is sold. Read to 4 decimals.

Getting it ready to sell

Clean-out, repairs or staging a sale would need.

Your closing costs for a buyout

Appraisal, deed, recording, title and any refinance costs, paid by you.

Price their share from

Owners pricing a buyout sometimes take off the selling costs and preparation a sale would have cost, so the price matches what the other owners would have netted from a sale; others use the full value because no sale happens. Pick either to compare.

Lower price in a court-ordered sale

% less

Your own estimate of how much less a sale ordered by a court might bring than a market sale. Type 0 to compare costs only.

Legal costs for each side in a court case

Your own estimate for you, and the same figure for the other owners together. In some states a court can order the case costs, and sometimes attorney fees, paid from the sale money by share instead; this box assumes each side pays its own.

Price for the other owners' share-

Cash you need for the buyout-

What you hold after the buyout, less the cash you put in-

Each $10,000 of value moves the price-

What each side ends up with

Way out	You	The other owners

This is arithmetic on the figures and estimates you type in, for general information only. It is not investment, financial, tax or legal advice. It does not know the property, the owners, any agreement between them, what credits the law or a court would allow, or how a court case would go, and every result is only as good as the numbers entered. Talk to an attorney licensed in the state where the property is, and your own tax and lending professionals, before relying on it.

How each number is worked out

Equity: what the house is worth minus the mortgages and liens on it.
Price for the other owners' share: their share (100% minus yours) of the equity at the full value, or, if you pick it, of what a market sale would net; then the credit owed to you and any lien against only them are taken off, and the credit owed to them is added.
Cash you need for the buyout: that price plus paying off any lien against only them, plus your closing costs. It does not include paying off or refinancing the debts, which stay on the house.
What you hold after the buyout, less the cash you put in: the equity minus the cash you need and any lien against only you. It is your equity if all of that cash is borrowed against the house.
A market sale: the value minus selling costs, getting it ready and the debts, split by share, with the credits moved from one side to the other and each owner's own lien taken off that owner's figure.
A court-ordered sale: the same, at the lower price you estimate, and with each side's legal costs taken off its own figure.
Each $10,000 of value: how much the price changes when the value changes by $10,000: their share of it, after selling costs when the price is figured from what a sale would net.

What it leaves out

Income and capital gains taxes, any tax on the transfer itself, any change to the property tax after a change in ownership, whether a lender will let you take over or refinance the debts, the mortgage payments, property taxes, insurance and upkeep someone pays while a sale or a court case runs, the cost of money in that time, rent or the value of living in the house while one owner stays in it, the time a court case takes, and a court dividing the land itself instead of ordering a sale. It does not know any agreement between the owners, a will, a divorce order or a court's rules, and it uses the same selling costs and preparation for a court-ordered sale as for a market sale. An owner who signed a mortgage generally stays liable on it after giving up their share, unless the lender releases them or the loan is refinanced or paid off. If an owner died recently, the house may still be part of the estate: an executor or administrator may control any sale or transfer, and the estate's debts and claims can come before the heirs' shares. For a divorcing couple, who keeps the house and on what terms is usually set in the divorce, by the spouses' settlement or by the court, under the state's rules for dividing marital property, which may not follow the shares on the deed. If the owners held the house as joint tenants with right of survivorship, a deceased owner's share usually passed to the surviving owners, not to that owner's heirs; check the deed before typing a share. A co-owner who cannot reach agreement can generally ask a court to divide or sell the property, often called a partition action, though usually not a married couple holding it as tenants by the entirety, and not where the owners validly agreed not to; and some states have added rules for property inherited by family members, such as a chance for the other owners to buy a share before a court sale. How that works, who pays the legal costs, and which payments a court would credit to which owner depend on the state and the facts; the inputs here are only your estimates of them.

General information only, not investment, financial, tax or legal advice. The calculator only does arithmetic on the numbers typed into it; it holds no data about any property, owner or market.