It is not the escrow company's fault.
There are a lot of questions a lawyer will need to ask and documents she or he will need to review before he or she will know how to answer your question. Are you partners in an actual partnership or just co-owners of the property? If you're partners, do you have a written partnership agreement? What does it say, if anything? If you are just co-owners and not partners, then the other owner is not liable for the loan and has not suffered any harm. If you fail to make payments and the lender forecloses, then there will be a lot of harm. If your co-owner forces the sale of the property and your share of the price is not enough to payoff the loan, then you will need to pay it off using your share PLUS additional cash of your own. As long as the other owner gets his share, he has not been damaged. He can force the sale of the property by "partition," unless you have a written agreement waiving that right.
As you can see, this is complicated. You need to hire a lawyer.
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Do you have a revocable living trust to protect your heirs against probate? Probate takes forever, is expensive, and is annoying. Do your family a favor. Set up a trust, and put all your property, especially any real property, into the trust. Since it is revocable, you can change it, add to it, take property out of it, or even cancel it completely, at any time. We set up such trusts, provide a pour-over will as a back-up for any property that does not make it into the trust, provide you with blank durable powers of attorney for health care and financial decisions, in case you become incapable of making such decisions while still alive, and convey one piece of real property to the trust, usually the family home, for $1500.00. If you would like to hire me to do this, let me know, and I'll send you a list of the information I need.
Dana Sack
Answered on Mar 09th, 2017 at 10:12 AM