Sharing agreements – fractional ownership

Looking for brilliant way to save (or make!) money from what you already own? Look no further. Enter ‘legal sharing’. There are a number of ways of going about sharing an asset legally.

Perhaps you have a swimming pool that you can rent to your neighbour to use every Tuesday, or perhaps you have a race car that you’d allow to be raced by a third party. These are simple sharing agreements – in fact, at law, you are leasing, or licensing the asset (swimming pool, car, boat, horse, land or whatever else) to the third party. This is generaly called ‘timeshare’. The third party doesn’t have any right of ownership to the asset – whatever that be.

A second sharing method is ‘fractional ownership’, where more than one party owns the asset. You could fractionalise almost anything, from a dog to an employee or an aircraft or piece of antique jewelry. Fractional ownership means that at law, both (or all if there are more than two) parties own the asset and have a legal right. Of course the parties themselves must decide the hows, whens and wheres. Take the example of a dog. It is no good simply agreeing that you’ll own half of it and Betty down the road will own the other half. A dog has to be fed, watered, cared for, walked and so on. So in addition to any legal agreement as to percentages or proportions of ownership, you must also decide who shall walk the dog, who is responsible for feeding it and paying the vets bills. The same applies to any asset – an aircraft for example. Whilst it does not need feeding exactly, it must be decided who refills it at the end of a flight.

So if you fractioanlise with a friend or family member, you may trust them not to bother with a written agreement. However, the larger the asset (if you share land or a holiday house in Spain) the more sensible it is to record the deal. (Of course if it is real property, the owners must be on the conveyance deeds anyway). A well written legal agreement will ensure that all, or both, owners know their part in the deal. Not only will it record the legal, but it will set the terms for the sharing arrangement, allowing you to sit back and enjoy the ride.

Net Lawman of course, stock many types of sharing agreement – for cars, boats, horses and land. If we don’t have a template version ready to download, we shall be more than delighted to draw a bespoke agreement for you.

Have a question? Drop us an email here.

Subscribe To Site:

Full Post Feed | Summary Feed | Comments Feed