• Menu
  • Skip to right header navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Natori Law Office LLLC

Big Firm Trained. Small Firm Care.

Header Right

1003 Bishop St • Pauahi Tower • Suite 1360 • Honolulu, HI 96813
  • Home
  • Our Attorneys
    • Nathan Natori
  • About Us
    • Your Initial Meeting
    • Clients
    • Testimonials
    • Fees
    • Outer Island
      • Big Island
      • Maui
      • Kauai
  • Practice Areas
    • Real Estate
      • Purchase & Sale of Hawaii Real Estate
      • Agreement of Sale
      • Commercial
      • Encroachment
      • Eviction
      • For Sale by Owner
      • Landlord / Tenant
      • Brokers & Realtors
      • Water Rights
      • Partition
    • Business
      • Forming A Business
      • Acquiring A Business
      • Corporate Governance
    • Financial Institutions
    • Construction
    • Debt Collection
    • Finance
    • Foreclosure
    • Franchise
    • Health Care
    • Land Use
    • Lobbying
    • Nonprofit
    • Public Utilities
    • Guardianship
    • Probate
  • News
  • Articles
  • Contact Us

Mobile Menu

  • Home
  • Our Attorneys
    • Nathan Natori
  • About Us
    • Your Initial Meeting
    • Clients
    • Testimonials
    • Fees
    • Outer Island
      • Big Island
      • Maui
      • Kauai
  • Practice Areas
    • Real Estate
      • Purchase & Sale of Hawaii Real Estate
      • Agreement of Sale
      • Commercial
      • Encroachment
      • Eviction
      • For Sale by Owner
      • Landlord / Tenant
      • Brokers & Realtors
      • Water Rights
      • Partition
    • Business
      • Forming A Business
      • Acquiring A Business
      • Corporate Governance
    • Financial Institutions
    • Construction
    • Debt Collection
    • Finance
    • Foreclosure
    • Franchise
    • Health Care
    • Land Use
    • Lobbying
    • Nonprofit
    • Public Utilities
    • Guardianship
    • Probate
  • News
  • Articles
  • Contact Us

Duties a Co-Owner of Hawaii Real Estate Owes to the Other Co-Owners

We’re often asked to provide legal advice to a co-owner of Hawaii real estate.  Often the client inherited the Hawaii real estate with other beneficiaries such as their siblings or cousins.  From an estate planning standpoint, such a distribution of real estate made sense to the decedent as he/she wanted to gift the property to the people who had been helpful to the decedent.

Unfortunately sometimes the reality is the beneficiaries or spouses do not like each other and end up fighting about the Hawaii property.  Many times those fights are even worse than disputes between third parties because family dynamics come into play.

What we have found is because emotions take over, rationale business decisions are ignored.  Reasonable offers by third parties to purchase or rent the property are rejected because feelings were hurt years or decades ago.  Lost in these Hawaii family disputes are the legal duties owed by each co-owner.    In Hawaii, the Hawaii Court of Appeals and the Hawaii Supreme Court have both recognized that in Hawaii co-tenants stand in a fiduciary relationship to each other.

For example, the Hawaii Supreme Court has specifically held that the fiduciary relationship a co-tenant owes to others includes giving the co-tenant notice.  Thus, a co-owner cannot run roughshod over another co-owner.  Under Hawaii law a co-tenant actually owes a duty of utmost loyalty and good faith and candor to the other co-tenant, and a breach of fiduciary responsibility would make the co-owner liable to the other co-owner for any damage caused by such breach.

As you can see, Hawaii real estate disputes between family members should not be allowed to run its natural course as the law constrains and penalizes such behavior.

Contact us and, as your Hawaii attorneys, we can guide you through the family dispute and hopefully reach a settlement that all the parties can live with and avoid a Hawaii partition action.

Primary Sidebar

Contact Us Now

  • Tell Us About Your Legal Issue

    To set up an appointment, please complete the inquiry form with your legal issue and contact information. We’ll respond to you within a day about whether or not we’re the right Hawaii attorneys for you. Besides whether we can handle your matter, we also need to determine if we’re a good fit for each other. We need to feel comfortable with you as a client, but you also need to feel comfortable with us as your Hawaii lawyer.

    Please note that we do not represent tenants in landlord/tenant disputes or borrowers in foreclosure proceedings.

  • * ~ Required · Privacy Policy

    Submitting this form does not establish an attorney-client relationship

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Footer

Aditya S.

Nathan is thorough, detailed, and knowledgeable.

Natori Law Office LLLC
1003 Bishop St
Pauahi Tower, Ste 1360
Honolulu, HI 96813

Site Footer

  • Home
  • Our Attorneys
  • About Us
  • Practice Areas
  • News
  • Articles
  • Contact Us

Copyright © 2023 Natori Law Office LLLC · All Rights Reserved

The information and content on this website is not formal legal advice. It is for informational purposes only. There is no legal association with the Natori Law Office LLLC based upon your viewing this website. You do not have any attorney-client relationship with the Natori Law Office LLLC unless you have formally retained the Natori Law Office LLLC to represent you by signing its engagement letter and complying with its terms.