Avoiding the partition auction.

As at: June 2026 · ← back to the guide

The partition auction is the court-ordered forced sale of a jointly owned property, governed by sections 180 et seq. of the German Forced Sale Act (ZVG). Any co-heir can apply for it at the local court — without the consent of the others, and without any prior judicial review of whether the family might still reach an agreement. The result: usually markedly lower proceeds, considerable procedural costs — and a rift in the family that remains.

The application of a single co-heir is enough to set the procedure in motion. The local court orders the auction, has the order noted in the land register and commissions an expert to determine the market value. This court-determined value is the procedure’s reference figure — it often turns out cautious, and it goes stale when the procedure drags on.

In the first auction hearing, protective thresholds apply: no bid below five tenths of the market value may be accepted, and below seven tenths acceptance can be refused on application (sections 85a, 74a ZVG). In a second hearing these thresholds fall away — then the bidding in the room alone decides. Several months usually pass before the first hearing; from application to payout of the proceeds, a year or more is common. The costs of court, expert report and public notices run into the thousands depending on the value, and are in effect deducted from the proceeds — so they hit everyone, including those who never wanted the procedure.

And one point that often surprises: the acceptance of the bid does not end the community of heirs. It continues in the proceeds — and the family must again agree on how to distribute them.

How much of the proceeds is lost in an auction cannot honestly be stated as a single figure. Older research on forced sales as a whole found accepted bids on average markedly below market value, with wide variation; recent evaluations by individual local valuation boards show, depending on the region, anything between roughly half and almost the full market value. In sought-after locations the result can be close to the market; in weaker locations it often falls considerably short. In every case, the procedural costs are added, as is the long duration in which the house stands empty and generates costs.

So the honest statement is not “you will lose a third”, but: the outcome is uncertain, control lies with the court, and the family carries the entire risk. An orderly open-market sale has preparation, selection and negotiation — an auction has only the hearing date.

Whoever asks “what is left at the end?” must deduct several items from the highest bid before anything is distributed at all. Simplified, in this order: first, charges still entered in the land register are paid off — for instance a remaining loan or a land charge. Then everyone bears the procedural costs together: court fees, the valuation report and the public notices, which run into the thousands depending on the value. What remains after that does not fall to the person who pursued the auction, but is distributed among all the co-heirs according to their inheritance quota — and the family must still agree on that distribution too.

So the highest bid in the room is not what arrives. Between the gross proceeds and what each person actually receives lie the discharged charges, the procedural costs and the months in which the house stood empty and kept generating costs. It is precisely this gap that makes the orderly open-market sale, as a rule, superior.

Even once an application has been filed, the procedure is not a foregone conclusion. Four things are worth knowing:

• Temporary suspension: on the application of a co-heir, the court can suspend the procedure for up to six months where this is appropriate in the circumstances (section 180(2) ZVG) — for instance to allow an agreement. One repetition is possible.
• Withdrawal: whoever filed the application can withdraw it up to the acceptance of the bid. Many procedures end exactly this way — in an agreement before the hearing.
• Right of first refusal on the sale of a share: if a co-heir sells their inheritance share to a third party, the remaining co-heirs have a statutory right of first refusal on the same terms for two months (section 2034 BGB). A stranger at the table can be prevented this way.
• Buy-up offers: commercial buyers typically pay markedly less for inheritance shares than their arithmetical value. What lies behind such letters is explained under Understanding buyer letters.

Most auction applications arise not from malice but from exhaustion — and very often from a dispute about the value. That is exactly where the way out lies: a neutral valuation by an independent expert, commissioned by everyone together. Whoever values the property should earn nothing from a later sale — then a figure emerges that everyone can trust.

On this basis, all the orderly paths remain open: a takeover by one person with a payout to the others, the severance (Abschichtung) — the less formal exit of individual heirs against compensation —, the joint open-market sale, or keeping and letting the house in an orderly way. Each of these paths preserves more value than the hearing in the courtroom; which one will hold depends on what each person truly needs. More under Buyout, takeover or sale.

Through an early, orderly agreement: a moderated conversation among the heirs before positions harden. Once a shared decision stands, the house can be passed on calmly and at its full value — or kept in an orderly way. That is precisely our task: more under the roadmap for heirs.

Order the conversation Take your bearings