A. The Plaintiff and the Defendants are co-owners of the area of 49,820 square meters of D forest land in Gyeongnam-gun, Busan-gun (hereinafter “instant forest”) and their co-ownership share is one-fourth of each of them.

B. Although the Plaintiff and the Defendants did not agree not to divide the forest of this case, they did not reach an agreement regarding the method of division.

[Ground of recognition] A without dispute, entry of evidence No. 1, purport of the whole pleadings

2. Determination on the cause of the claim

A. According to the facts acknowledged above, since the Plaintiff, a co-owner of the forest of this case, and the Defendants did not reach agreement on the method of partition, the Plaintiff may file a judicial claim against the Defendants for partition pursuant to Article 269(1) of the Civil Act.

B. Division 1) The method of partition of co-owned property may be selected at will when the co-owners reach an agreement, but if the co-owned property is divided through a trial due to the failure to reach an agreement, the court shall divide it in kind in principle. If the co-owned property is unable to be divided in kind or if the value of the property is considerably reduced if it is not possible to divide it in kind, the auction of the property may be ordered (see, e.g., Supreme Court Decision 2012Da83261, Jul. 10, 2014). In the payment division, the requirement that “it is not possible to divide it in kind” is not physically strict, but it includes cases where it is difficult or inappropriate to divide it in kind in light of the nature, location, area, use situation, and the use value after the division, etc. of the co-owner, and even if the co-owner divided it in kind, it includes cases where the value of the portion owned by the co-owner might be significantly decreased (including cases where the value might be significantly decreased if it is considerably decreased).