Summary

On the periphery of the institute of common ownership there is a topic that could be considered to be the main axis for the rule system of common ownership – the regulation terminating common ownership. By regulating the legal bases and organisation of the termination of the right of common ownership, the legislator lays down norms that determine the stability of common ownership, and thereby the bases of stability in the legal system. Estonia has chosen the path whereby, with the support of general private autonomy, the common owners, as a rule, can freely terminate the common ownership at any time without good reason. Although the organisational side, which is the guarantee for applying this right, has been regulated in law, it is nevertheless unclear in parts, so a notably large number of issues have been left to the courts to decide.

The article analyses a problematic and, judging by the court practice, one of the more current ways of terminating the right of common ownership – the termination of common ownership through division into physical shares. The main emphasis is on the question of when and on which conditions can common ownership be terminated through division into physical shares. The article contains a mostly legal-comparative analysis, with emphasis on the main models for the Law of Obligations Act – the German and Swiss civil codes, but also on the Austrian civil code, where the termination of common ownership is carried out in a similar manner to Estonian law.