When Partners Split Assets, What Procedure is Used?

Rav Yitzchak Grossman

Questions: If two partners jointly own a multiunit property and want to dissolve the partnership. How can they go about dividing it? 

Answer: If they are able to equally divide the units – for example, if it is a 40-unit property and they can each take possession of 20 units – they can do that. The question is how they should decide who gets which half. If they are able to reach a mutual agreement, that is great. If they cannot, there is a halachic procedure of making a goral (lottery) to determine who gets what. 

There is a disagreement amongst the Poskim how a goral works. Some say that it is a means of discovering the will of Hashem. The goral lets us know which half of the property Hashem wants each partner to get. Others disagree and say that it is simply a procedure to resolve a dispute when there is no other solution and is not a mystical process. 

There is an additional dispute when it comes to dividing items that simply cannot be split evenly. For example, if the partnership including a priceless sefer Torah or family heirlooms, and the only solution is to offer one side monetary compensation and the other side the irreplaceable item, some Poskim say that a goral cannot be used for this since the two things are fundamentally not equal. Other Poskim say that a goral would work since it is always considered a valid way to decide how assets should be divided.