Whenever liquidation of property takes place, equal rights of successors should be given due consideration. In order to guarantee that proper liquidation should be ensured.
A decision rendered in the cassation bench on June 23, 2001 affirms this fact. The suit initiated with the claim of the applicant stating that the defendant should give him his part of the inheritance. The court analyzed the case at hand and stated that the land development agency has sent the value of the house hence it ordered ¼ of the estimated money to be given to the applicant. The high court up on appeal enforced the decision of the lower courts. As the cassation bench came to observe the appeal was only on the value of the house estimated by the agency. The appeal of the applicant showed that the value estimated was not based on the market value of the house but rather it was based on the cost of construction of house. Hence the mechanism of partition was unjust.
Book value only incorporates the costs incurred to build the house and the payments made to the workers involved in the building of the house. But when considering the market value of a given house, the location and the current value of the house are also considered. Generally a justicable and fair partition can only be guaranteed if the value estimated is based on the current the market value of the house. Having said that, the Cassation court amended the lower courts decisions and stated while partitioning property at the center of the dispute, the market value of the house shall be considered and that the applicant shall take ¼ of the estimated money.
What we can grasp from the above Cassation court decision is that whenever a question of division of property arises, courts should always take into consideration the market value of the property rather than its book value; that’s because this is the only way that fair distribution of property can be guaranteed.
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