Contracts
The basic terms of a co-ownership Agreement
The decision highlights the need to have these matters agreed before a property is purchased, to avoid costly litigation in resolving disputes that can arise. Having the following points agreed before proceeding will be a good starting point to a co-ownership Agreement:
Contributions to the purchase price, acquisition costs and outgoings
An agreement should set out the cash contributions made by each co-owner to the final purchase price of the property. This contribution should be reflected in the percentage share each owner has in the property as tenants in common. For example, a simple arrangement will have two parties owning a property as tenant in common in equal shares, with each party having a 50% share in the property.
The Agreement can also determine the share of acquisition costs in buying a property, as well as the apportionment of outgoings such as rates, power, maintenance, and repairs during ownership. If only one party is to occupy the property, it may be preferable to have an unequal division of certain outgoings such as power.
Breach of co ownership agreement
If you tell the other owner that you want out of the agreement, then unless you come to some new arrangement by consent, she could sue you for beach of the agreement. It would not matter if you did not read the agreement fully. That is not a legal defence regarding a written contract.
If there is an agreement that specifies that you both actually own the dog, the a court could be asked to determine who gets the dog, with the other person having to buy out any equity or ownership interest that the other owner has. It would be likely that if you have possession of the dog now and were to keep the dog at all times other the. The 4 breeding periods that a court would rule that you keep the dog. It would then be a matter of determining what amount you have to pay the other owner. That would be an amount equal to any investment the that other person has made since your agreement and to date in the dog. For breach they would also be entitled to any loss or expense they will have as a result. That could include then costs to arrange finding another animal to breed.
They are not allowed to try and recover from you the profits they may have earned had they had and sold puppies. That type of economic loss is not something a court will award. They have to be able to prove that they have an actual out of pocket loss, and for that you could be responsible. They would have a legal obligation also to take whatever steps they could to keep their loss to a minimum.
Probably the sooner you advise them the better. They may be incurring expenses to prepare for having the dog for breeding, which can be avoided if they know earlier that they will not have the dog.
To avoid a potential lawsuit, you may want to propose some payment to the other owner to buy out their interest and see if this can be negotiated. That should be possible unless they are unreasonable and try to claim that you must pay them for the value of the puppies they will not have. A court will not likely make such a speculative award.
Fulfillment of Co Ownership Contract
Does not really need any signed paperwork. The terms of the agreement would be the advertisement and/or sale of the litter of pups, photo's of the stud service or breeding/tie of the 2 dogs, receipts of travel to and from and any other form of evidence that would prove to a judge that the second co owner fulfilled the terms of the agreement.
The second co owner may wish to register her dog in her name as the only owner of the stud/bitch. This is of course possible by sending in the registration form of the dog per the back of the registration certificate given to the 2nd co owner at the time of transfer of dog/property.
The registration cert will then be stamped and kept by the registration department and a new registration will be sent to the 2nd co owner that states that they are the sole owner of the said dog on the certificate.
The second co owner may also wish to receive a receipt of sale with the fill in amount being (number of puppies out of ...... )
Example:
Schwarz Kennels received a litter back (number of pups)
from (name of second co owner)
male dog/female dog (name) out of (names) on the date ( ) as fulfilment of co ownership contract.
Signed (secretary, owner, registration dept or who ever is the first co owner)