Court may adjust cotenants' accounts.

- Having properly assumed jurisdiction for the partition of the property of the cotenants by its sale and distribution of the proceeds, a court of equity has jurisdiction to adjust the accounts or claims of the cotenants. Taylor v. Sharpe, 221 Ga. 282, 144 S.E.2d 390 (1965), overruled on other grounds O'Connor v. Bielski, 288 Ga. 81, 701 S.E.2d 856 (2010).

Court empowered to mold decree to protect absent interested person presumed dead.

- When an absentee minor has been missing for several years, the next of kin claiming as heirs at law of the absentee may, by an action in equity instituted against the guardian after a presumption of death arises, compel the administration and distribution of the estate. In such a case, the court of equity has full power to mold the court's decree as to protect the absentee or any person claiming under the absentee, should it afterwards appear that the absentee was not in fact dead, or that the absentee did not die until after the absentee attained majority. Payne v. Home Sav. Bank, 193 Ga. 406, 18 S.E.2d 770 (1942).

Equitable partition found authorized.

- When two railway companies erected a station on the land of one of the companies, at the joint and equal expense of both companies, under a contract whereby each of the companies became owners of one-half interest in the building, and when, after the station had been used by both companies jointly and individually for several years, the company that did not own the land became insolvent, and all the company's property, including the company's interest in the station, was duly sold under foreclosure proceedings brought in a court of competent jurisdiction and purchased by private individuals, and since the railroad of the company was dismantled and the company's business as a common carrier was abandoned, so that there was no longer any necessity for that company or the purchasers to use the station for railroad purposes, the purchasers are entitled to have the station partitioned in equity, the court having power to protect the interest of all parties by appropriate decree. Henry Talmadge & Co. v. Seaboard Air Line Ry., 170 Ga. 225, 152 S.E. 243 (1930).

In a dispute over real property and specific performance of a Redemption Agreement, the trial court did not abuse the court's discretion in making an equitable award because O.C.G.A. §§ 44-6-140 and44-6-141 granted it the authority to adjust the accounts and claims of the parties as required by the circumstances and, more specifically, authorized the trial court to consider all of the circumstances, including any circumstances that occurred after the making of the contract. Bagwell v. Trammel, 297 Ga. 873, 778 S.E.2d 173 (2015).

Limitations period.

- In an estate's claim for partition of property, a co-tenant's counterclaim for contribution and set-off for sums the co-tenant paid in loan and tax payments was not barred by the four-year statute of limitations, O.C.G.A. § 9-3-25, because under O.C.G.A. §§ 44-6-122 and44-6-141, the statute did not begin to run until the estate filed its complaint. Khimani v. Ruppenthal, 344 Ga. App. 658, 811 S.E.2d 448 (2018).

Cited in Greer v. Henderson, 37 Ga. 1 (1867); Brown v. Mooney, 108 Ga. 331, 33 S.E. 942 (1899); Smith v. Smith, 133 Ga. 170, 65 S.E. 414 (1909); Clements v. Seaboard Air-Line Ry., 158 Ga. 764, 124 S.E. 516 (1924); Rosenberg v. Phelps, 159 Ga. 607, 126 S.E. 788 (1925); Joel v. Joel, 201 Ga. 520, 40 S.E.2d 541 (1946); Bell v. Cone, 208 Ga. 467, 67 S.E.2d 558 (1951); McCreary v. Wright, 132 Ga. App. 500, 208 S.E.2d 373 (1974); McClain v. McClain, 241 Ga. 162, 243 S.E.2d 879 (1978); Brannon v. Simpson, 244 Ga. 58, 257 S.E.2d 541 (1979).

Am. Jur. 2d.

- 27A Am. Jur. 2d, Equity, § 1.

C.J.S.

- 68 C.J.S., Partition, § 72.

ALR.

- Power to decree pecuniary sum as equality in order to equalize shares of parties in partition, 65 A.L.R. 352.

Power of guardian to agree to, or of court to approve, voluntary partition between infant or incompetent and cotenant, 157 A.L.R. 755.

Acquisition by one party pending partition suit of all outstanding joint or common interests as affecting power of court to determine questions of controverted title, remove clouds on title, etc., 162 A.L.R. 227.

Allowance and apportionment of counsel fee in partition action or suit, 94 A.L.R.2d 575.