Note: translated from Polish
In the case ref. no. I Ns 285/24, the District Court in Giżycko considered a case concerning the abolition of co-ownership between the parties to the proceedings.
According to Article 195 of the Civil Code, co-ownership may be indivisibly vested in several persons. An action related to the abolition of co-ownership may occur at the request of each of the co-owners.
It is worth noting that in the case of the abolition of co-ownership, the cooperation of the parties to the proceedings turns out to be important, because in the case under consideration, the interested parties themselves have already agreed on a convenient division between themselves. In fact, each of the co-owners has the right to present their own solution, but there is no guarantee that a given position will be taken into account by the Court and other participants in the proceedings.
In the justification of the final decision, the court emphasized that despite the lack of formal consent, the parties de facto agreed on the method of abolishing co-ownership, which made it possible to issue a ruling on the basis of Article 210 of the Civil Code. Namely, the Applicant was to receive 1/2 of the share in the joint ownership, and the remaining 1/2 was to be given to the participants of the proceedings on the basis of community of property rights.
The Court’s competence to consider cases related to the abolition of co-ownership does not include the sale of shares in co-ownership between co-owners. Hence the conclusion that the Court could only rule, as it did in the operative part.
The court held that the principle set out in Civil Procedure Code Art. 520 §1 should be applied to costs, i.e. „Each participant shall bear the costs of the proceedings related to his or her participation in the case„. In the present case, there is no conflict of interest within the meaning of
Civil Procedure Code Art. 520 §2.
In the presented factual situation, there was no actual conflict of interest, because the participants only presented different proposals as to the manner of abolishing co-ownership, which does not constitute a conflict of interest within the meaning of Civil Procedure Code Art. 520 §2 (cf. J. Górowski, Adjudication on costs, pp. 173–174; post. Supreme Court of 16 January 2013, II CZ 149/12).
In conclusion, it is worth mentioning that in cases for the dissolution of real estate, an expert opinion may be prepared, as in the case of the case in question. On the other hand, none of the parties to the proceedings challenged it, which is why it could have formed the basis for the final decision of the Court of First Instance and did not provide grounds for declaring the case to be disputed for the purposes of the decision on costs.