Petition court to force sale

[petey233]

What is the name of your state? NY

Hi. I'm trying to fill out paperwork so that I can take my ex to court and force him to sell some commercial property that we own together. The document that I copied from the law library in town is for forcing a partition. It states in the document that if a partition is not feasible without great prejudice to the owners then the court will force a sale. How do I fill out this paperwork? There is a lot of 'stuff' in parenthesis that reads like a completely different language to me. The people at the law library were not able to help me and I can't afford a lawyer. The property is owned out-right, no liens, and is not income generating. Once I get this paperwork filled out then what? Where do I take it? I'm really confused. I thought about maybe just calling some lawyers in the phone book and asking them what some of this language means and then kinda winging it from there, but it doesn't really seem like the sort of thing that one would wing. Any suggestions would be welcome and helpful.
Thank you.

 

[FlyingRon]

Partition suits are not quick or easy. If you have 50% clear equity in this property, you'll have more than enough to pay the lawyer it will require.

 

[petey233]

Force sale

The lawyer that I went to see in February gave me a bunch of paperwork, told me I was smart enough to figure it out myself, and said to get all of the property out of the building-whether it was mine or his. I did get the property out, my ex showed up with the police but I had all of my paperwork in order so they couldn't do anything to me. The lawyer told me that if my ex couldn't prove something was his with a bill of sale to take that too and leave anything that he could. 50% of this building is mine. In fact, I was being generous at the time that we agreed on splitting it in half, almost a year ago, and I thought it would speed things up. He has refused to put even a for sale sign on it, saying that he wants to sell it to someone who will complete the dream we had for the place and I just want it sold and done with. Our 50% agreement is verbal, nothing written. If it came down to it, I'm sure I could prove that more of it is mine. He didn't work a real job (musician) for the 5 years that we were together and I paid for everything-including all of the money put into the building. I figure that since he hasn't filed a tax return in 5 years he has no way to prove he has any money in the building-his family put in less than 10k. He took all of the receipts when he left though and I am not sure if that could hurt me. Just about everything was paid for in cash so no credit receipts or checks. Yes, this is amusing-the lawyer told me as much-in addition to asking me what I was doing buying commercial property while having no business acumen to speak of. I recently became disabled, I have no income, I am fighting for social security, and have been taken off social services because I am incapable of showing up to a 3 hour long class that is mandatory even though my doctors have given them plenty of paperwork telling them that I can't. This is the only lawyer who would even talk to me, and he said that if I got an appraisal on the building and it was enough, he would let me sign a percentage of my percent over to him. If the building doesn't sell, his percentage goes up and up and up. Has anyone ever done this by themselves?