Short answer. No to both. The Rule does not prejudice or defeat the right of anyone holding paramount title over the property, and it does not restrict co-owners from making an amicable partition by agreement and proper conveyance without going to court at all.
What the law says
Nothing in this Rule contained shall be construed so as to prejudice, defeat, or destroy the right or title of any person claiming the real estate involved by title under any other person, or by title paramount to the title of the parties among whom the partition may have been made; nor so as to restrict or prevent persons holding real estate jointly or in common from making an amicable partition thereof by agreement and suitable instruments of conveyance without recourse to an action.
Rule 69, Section 12 — Neither paramount rights nor amicable partition affected by this Rule. Read the full provision →
Paramount title survives a partition action
A partition judgment resolves how the property is divided among the parties in that action, but it is not construed to prejudice, defeat, or destroy the right or title of any person who claims the real estate by title under someone else, or by title paramount to the title of the parties who were partitioned among. That outside claim survives the partition case untouched, regardless of how the property was divided among the litigating co-owners, and regardless of what the commissioners' report or the court's judgment happened to say about who owned what.
Why paramount claims are unaffected
This protects a stranger to the partition action whose claim to the property predates or overrides the claims of the parties who divided it among themselves — the partition proceeding settles the relationship between the parties to that action, not the validity of a superior outside claim. Someone with a paramount title must still pursue their own separate action to enforce it, since the partition case was never the forum for testing that claim in the first place and the parties to it could not have litigated it there even if they had wanted to.
Amicable partition remains a free option
The rule also makes clear that co-owners holding real estate jointly or in common are never restricted or prevented from making an amicable partition by agreement and suitable instruments of conveyance without ever going to court — Rule 69 is a remedy for when agreement fails, not the exclusive path to dividing co-owned property. Co-owners who agree on a division can simply execute a deed of partition among themselves and skip the commissioners, the hearing, and the judgment entirely, reserving the court process for the cases where they genuinely cannot agree on how to split what they own.
Related provisions
- Rule 69, Section 12 — Neither paramount rights nor amicable partition affected by this Rule
- Rule 69, Section 1 — Complaint in action for partition of real estate
- Rule 69, Section 2 — Order for partition, and partition by agreement thereunder