According to the above facts of recognition, the Plaintiff and the Defendants shared the real estate listed in the separate sheet, and the agreement on division was not reached between the Plaintiff and the Defendants. Accordingly, the Plaintiff may file a claim for partition of co-owned property against the Defendants on the basis of their co-ownership right pursuant to Article 269

Furthermore, as to the method of partition, the partition of co-owned property by a trial shall be, in principle, divided in kind to the extent that each co-owner can make a reasonable partition according to his/her share. However, if it is impossible to divide in kind or it is possible in form, if the price might be reduced remarkably due to the possible cause, the auction of the co-owned property should be ordered to be divided by the method of so-called price division.

The requirement that a "in-kind can not be divided" in the price division is not a physically strict interpretation, but it includes cases where it is difficult or inappropriate to divide the property in kind in light of the nature, location, area, utilization status, use value after the division, etc. of the common property.

Although it is formally possible to divide in kind.

Even if the common property cannot be divided equally according to the ratio of shares owned by each co-owner in consideration of the location, area and surrounding road conditions, use value, price, ratio of shares owned by each co-owner, and current status of use and profit-making, etc., the common property shall not be divided in kind, but the common property shall be divided in a price-sharing method.

As seen earlier, the real estate subject to the partition of co-owned property of this case is a building which is not able to be divided in kind due to its nature, and thus, it is auction division.