When a Co-Owner Sells Your Joint Property Without Consent
Few legal predicaments carry quite the weight of discovering that a co-owner — a sibling, a cousin, or a business partner — has quietly sold joint property and handed a stranger a sale deed that reads as if the entire asset was theirs alone to dispose of. In that moment, the property dispute stops being abstract. It becomes urgent, personal, and, for many families, financially existential.
Indian property law does not leave you helpless in this situation. It does, however, demand precision, speed, and the right legal strategy. Understanding the framework before a crisis erupts — or reacting swiftly when one already has — is the difference between recovering your rights and watching them slip away. This article sets out that framework as courts actually apply it, not as it is commonly misread on paper. Throughout, the indispensable role of a qualified property lawyer in navigating every stage of this process will be front and centre.
The Architecture of Co-Ownership Under Indian Law
Co-ownership of immovable property in India arises from multiple sources: partition of a Hindu undivided family (HUF), inheritance under the Hindu Succession Act 1956 (as amended in 2005 to include daughters as full coparceners), a joint purchase agreement, a family settlement, or a testamentary bequest to multiple beneficiaries. Regardless of the source, a core principle runs through all of them: each co-owner holds an undivided interest in the whole property rather than exclusive rights over any demarcated portion.
This concept of undivided interest is the legal bedrock. Until a formal partition is effected by metes and bounds — meaning physical division with boundaries clearly drawn and legally recorded — or until all co-owners jointly execute a sale to a third party, no individual co-owner can claim or convey absolute, exclusive ownership over any specific portion of the joint asset. The property belongs to all co-owners simultaneously, in shares that are notional until partition makes them tangible.
Section 44 of the Transfer of Property Act, 1882, the principal legislative provision governing this situation, codifies the position precisely. It permits a co-owner to transfer their own share to a third party or to another co-owner, but it provides an important safeguard: where the property is a dwelling house belonging to an undivided family, a transferee who is not already a family member cannot compel joint possession or partition within one year of the transfer. Courts have repeatedly read this provision alongside the general law of co-ownership to protect non-consenting co-owners from being ousted by the purchaser.
The Fundamental Question: What Can a Co-Owner Legally Sell?
The answer to this question is narrow and unambiguous: a co-owner may transfer only their own undivided share. They may not sell the entire property, or a physically specified portion of it, unless a valid partition has already taken place and allocated that portion exclusively to them, or unless all co-owners have given their informed and documented consent to the sale of the whole.
This principle received an authoritative restatement from the Supreme Court of India in its September 2024 judgment in S.K. Golam Lalchand v. Nandu Lal Shaw & Ors. (Civil Appeal No. 4177 of 2024). The facts of that case are instructive. A property in Howrah had been jointly purchased in 1959 by two brothers, Sita Ram and Salik Ram, in equal shares. Decades later, one of their heirs, Brij Mohan — the son of Sita Ram — executed a registered sale deed in favour of S.K. Golam Lalchand, purporting to convey the entire property. Golam Lalchand claimed to be a bona fide purchaser and asserted that Brij Mohan had acquired sole ownership through an alleged gift and a family settlement.
Three courts in succession — the trial court, the First Appellate Court, and the High Court — rejected the story of the gift and the family settlement as unproved. When the matter reached the Supreme Court, a bench comprising Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Pankaj Mithal confirmed the position in no uncertain terms. The Court held that Brij Mohan alone was not competent to transfer the entire undivided property. The sale deed was valid only to the extent of Brij Mohan’s share; the rest of the property remained unaffected and under the co-ownership of Salik Ram’s legal heirs. A permanent injunction was granted in their favour, restraining Golam Lalchand from disturbing their possession or asserting any right over the property beyond the transferable share until a formal partition was conducted.
“The suit property which is undivided is left with the co-owners to proceed in accordance with law to get their shares determined and demarcated before making a transfer.” — Supreme Court of India, S.K. Golam Lalchand v. Nandu Lal Shaw (2024 INSC 676)
This ruling reaffirms a long-settled principle, but its significance lies in its clear and unambiguous modern articulation. Every property lawyer advising a client on joint property matters will now cite this decision as the starting point for understanding what any co-owner can and cannot do with undivided property.
What the Buyer Actually Acquires — and What They Do Not
One of the most consequential and frequently misunderstood aspects of unauthorised co-owner sales is the position of the buyer. A person who purchases from a co-owner without the consent of other co-owners is not a wrongdoer per se; they simply step into the legal shoes of the selling co-owner and acquire no more than what that co-owner could lawfully convey.
In practice, this means the buyer obtains an undivided share of uncertain boundaries. They cannot assert exclusive possession, cannot evict the other co-owners, cannot create third-party interests over the whole property, and cannot construct on any specific portion without risking a court injunction. The sale deed may look clean on paper, but its practical weight is sharply limited until a partition settles the boundaries of what the buyer actually holds.
Where the buyer attempts to act as though they are the absolute owner — taking possession of the whole, collecting rent from all tenants, refusing access to the remaining co-owners, or commencing construction — the non-consenting co-owners have immediate recourse. This is precisely the moment when engaging an experienced property lawyer becomes critically urgent.
The Legal Remedies Available to Non-Consenting Co-Owners
1. Injunction: The First and Most Urgent Line of Defence
When a buyer who has obtained a one-sided sale deed begins asserting exclusive control over the property, the most immediate remedy is an application for a temporary injunction before the civil court. This is an order restraining the buyer from taking possession, commencing construction, creating further encumbrances, or otherwise altering the character of the joint property while the substantive dispute is being adjudicated.
The three conditions a court weighs when deciding whether to grant a temporary injunction — prima facie case, balance of convenience, and irreparable harm — are consistently satisfied in co-ownership disputes where an unauthorised sale is evident from the documents. Courts have granted such injunctions in urban markets including Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru where property values are high and the risk of rapid alienation or construction makes delay potentially catastrophic. A skilled property lawyer will file and argue this application with urgency, often obtaining an ex parte interim order on the very first day of hearing.
The April 2025 Supreme Court decision clarifying that post-partition shares become self-acquired property underscores why injunctive relief matters so acutely before any partition occurs: once partition is complete, the selling co-owner’s share becomes legally defined, and the buyer’s claim crystallises. Protecting the status quo until that point is therefore paramount.
2. Partition Suit: The Comprehensive and Final Resolution
A suit for partition is the most thorough and conclusive remedy in joint property disputes. It asks the civil court to determine each co-owner’s share and, where feasible, physically divide the property by metes and bounds. Where physical division is not practicable — because the property is a built structure, because applicable building regulations prevent subdivision, or because division would cause a disproportionate reduction in value — the court has the power to direct a sale of the entire property and equitably distribute the proceeds among the co-owners.
Once a decree of partition is passed, the legal uncertainty dissolves. The buyer claiming through one co-owner is confined to whatever share the selling co-owner is allotted by the court. Any excess claim by the buyer over the property — including any possession held during the pendency of the suit — becomes immediately untenable.
A property lawyer advising aggrieved co-owners will almost invariably file a suit for partition alongside the application for injunction. These two remedies are complementary: the injunction protects the property while litigation proceeds, and the partition provides the permanent, court-endorsed answer to who owns what.
3. Declaration and Cancellation of the Sale Deed
Where the transaction is infected by a more serious level of wrongdoing — the selling co-owner misrepresenting themselves as sole owner, suppressing the existence of other co-owners, using a forged or fabricated power of attorney, or impersonating a deceased co-owner — the aggrieved parties are entitled to seek a declaratory decree from the civil court stating that the sale deed is null and void insofar as it prejudices their interest.
The legal foundation for this relief is Section 31 of the Specific Relief Act, 1963, which empowers courts to cancel instruments. In the Golam Lalchand judgment, the Supreme Court expressly clarified that a person who is not a party to the impugned sale deed is not obliged to formally pray for its cancellation in all cases; the court may grant appropriate declaratory relief even in the absence of a prayer for cancellation, since Section 31 uses the word “may” and is not imperative. This is a practically important clarification that a competent property lawyer will leverage when structuring the reliefs in a plaint.
Where mutation of revenue records has already been effected in favour of the buyer — a step that is often taken quickly after registration to create a semblance of established ownership — the declaratory and cancellation decree becomes essential to correcting the official record and preventing the buyer from using the mutation entry to assert a colour of title that the law does not recognise.
4. Recovery of Possession and Mesne Profits
If the buyer has gone beyond mere assertion of rights and has actually entered into exclusive possession of the entire property, the aggrieved co-owners may sue for recovery of joint possession. This is a civil suit for a possessory remedy, asking the court to restore the co-owners to the possession that the buyer has wrongfully usurped.
In addition to possession, the co-owners may claim mesne profits — compensation for the period during which the buyer wrongfully enjoyed exclusive use of the property and derived income from it, including rental income that properly belongs proportionately to all co-owners. Courts have awarded mesne profits at prevailing market rental rates for the duration of illegal exclusive possession, particularly where evidence discloses collusion between the selling co-owner and the buyer to engineer the ouster of the other co-owners.
An experienced property lawyer will quantify and claim mesne profits from the outset, both as a monetary remedy in its own right and as a litigation tool that demonstrates to the court the concrete financial harm caused by the unauthorised transaction.
Court Auction Sales and Execution Proceedings: A Persistent Misconception
A widely held but legally incorrect belief is that a property sold through a court-supervised auction in execution of a decree overrides co-ownership rights. This is not the law. Where the undivided share of one co-owner is attached and sold at a court auction to satisfy a decree against them alone, the auction purchaser steps into that co-owner’s shoes and acquires only the undivided share. The other co-owners are protected by their undivided interest; they are not judgment-debtors, and the decree against one co-owner cannot fasten upon the entirety of a jointly held asset.
Indian courts have consistently protected non-judgment-debtor co-owners from overreach in execution proceedings. Where an auction purchaser attempts to claim the entirety of the property, the other co-owners are entitled to file a claim petition under Order XXI Rule 58 of the Civil Procedure Code (or its successor provisions under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita framework), invoking their distinct ownership interest. A property lawyer with experience in execution proceedings will file and press this claim promptly, before the auction purchaser can take possession or create further interests.
Criminal Dimensions: When Civil Law Is Not Enough
Civil remedies remain the primary and most effective means of protecting co-ownership rights, since their object is the restoration of title, possession, and economic interests. Criminal proceedings serve a different, supplementary function: they impose penal consequences on fraudulent conduct and may compel evidence to surface through police investigation.
Since July 2024, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) 2023 has replaced the Indian Penal Code as the criminal law of India. Provisions directly relevant to property fraud include Section 316 (criminal breach of trust), Section 318 (cheating), Sections 336–340 (forgery of documents and using forged documents as genuine), and the chapters dealing with fraudulent deeds and dispositions of property. Under Section 318(4) BNS — the successor to the widely invoked Section 420 IPC — a person who dishonestly or fraudulently induces another to deliver property can face up to seven years of imprisonment and a fine. Forgery of title documents under Sections 336–338 BNS carries penalties extending to imprisonment for life in the most serious cases.
The registration of an FIR under these provisions is legally appropriate where there is clear, demonstrable evidence of forged signatures on conveyance documents, fabricated or misused powers of attorney, impersonation of deceased co-owners in transactions, or a deliberately orchestrated scheme to deceive and permanently dispossess other co-owners.
However, the strategic question of whether to initiate criminal proceedings alongside the civil case — and the precise timing of doing so — demands careful consideration. A property lawyer experienced in both civil and criminal property litigation will assess the specific evidence, evaluate the risk of procedural complications that could delay or interfere with the civil case, and advise on whether parallel criminal action is likely to strengthen or fragment the overall strategy. The 2025 Supreme Court ruling in Arshad Neyaz Khan v. State of Jharkhand further underscores the importance of this calibration, holding that cheating and criminal breach of trust cannot be alleged simultaneously on identical facts. Getting the criminal pleadings right from the outset requires expert oversight.
The Role of a Property Lawyer: Far More Than Filing a Plaint
Co-ownership disputes are not problems that yield to a standardised playbook. Each case turns on its particular chain of title, the documentary history of how co-ownership was created, the conduct of the parties, the current state of possession, and the nature and extent of the relief that the aggrieved co-owner can realistically obtain. These variables determine not only the remedies that are available but the order in which they should be pursued, the forum in which they should be filed, and the evidence that must be secured before the opposing party can move to destroy or conceal it.
An experienced property lawyer performs several functions that are beyond the capacity of non-specialist advisers. They carry out a rapid assessment of the title chain to identify exactly what the selling co-owner could lawfully convey and whether the buyer has any claim to bona fide purchaser status that might complicate the civil case. They examine the revenue records and encumbrance certificates to determine whether mutation has already occurred and whether any further alienations have been created downstream of the impugned sale.
They file, frame, and argue the injunction application with the urgency that the situation demands, because delay in obtaining interim protection allows the buyer to create facts on the ground — through construction, further transfer, or alienation — that complicate recovery. They structure the plaint in the partition suit with precision, ensuring that all reliefs — partition, declaration, injunction, recovery of possession, and mesne profits — are clearly and consistently pleaded so that no element of the case is conceded by omission.
In cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, and Hyderabad, where real estate values are substantial and the pipeline of interested buyers makes rapid re-alienation a realistic risk, the engagement of a property lawyer within days of discovering an unauthorised sale can be decisive. Many aggrieved co-owners delay, hoping the matter will resolve itself or that a family conversation will remedy the breach. That delay is often the single most damaging factor in their subsequent legal position.
Pre-emptive Protections: How a Property Lawyer Helps Before Disputes Arise
The most effective legal intervention is one that precedes the dispute entirely. A property lawyer engaged at the time of acquiring, inheriting, or restructuring jointly held property can draft or review a co-ownership agreement that explicitly addresses the rights and obligations of each co-owner, the procedure to be followed if any co-owner wishes to sell, and the rights of first refusal that must be offered to the other co-owners before any external sale. While Indian law already implies many of these rights, a written and registered co-ownership agreement eliminates ambiguity and provides a documentary foundation for enforcement.
The co-owners should also ensure that property tax records, revenue mutation entries, and all public-facing ownership records accurately reflect the joint nature of the title. A unilateral mutation effected by one co-owner — presenting themselves to the revenue office as the sole owner — is a precursor to an unauthorised sale and should be challenged promptly. Many such mutations are challenged through revenue authorities and civil courts, and an experienced property lawyer can identify the warning signs early.
Closing Perspective: The Law Protects You, But Only If You Move
The legal framework for protecting co-owners against unauthorised sales is robust. The Supreme Court’s 2024 ruling in Golam Lalchand has removed any residual ambiguity about the extent of a co-owner’s power to convey undivided property. Courts across India routinely grant injunctions, pass partition decrees, award possession and mesne profits, and cancel fraudulently executed sale deeds when approached correctly and in time.
What the law cannot do is enforce itself. The framework of civil relief — injunctions, partition, declaration, and possession — must be actively invoked. The criminal framework under the BNS must be deployed judiciously and strategically. The title must be carefully examined and the evidence secured before it is removed or suppressed. All of this requires a property lawyer who understands not just the legislation but the way courts in the relevant jurisdiction actually handle these cases in practice.
If you are confronted with a situation where a co-owner has sold joint property without your consent, the single most important step is to consult a property lawyer immediately. Not next week. Not after one more family conversation. Today. The legal protections that exist for you are real, but they are not self-executing — and the window to protect them effectively narrows with every day of inaction.
