How do I legally evict a squatter from my jointly held property?

Question

Deed is lists both myself and my ex-daughter in law as joint tenants with rights of survivorship. When she and my son divorced, I agreed to assume the mortgage. For nearly ten years, I have paid the mortgage, taxes, utilities, insurance & maintenance on the property without a dime being contributed by the ex daughter in law. My wife and I purchased an RV, vacated the house and had negotiated with the bank that they would do a deed in lieu of foreclosure, and offer her the house for the amount owed. She fraudulently tried to refinance mortgage over the phone. She then had the bank take my mortgage payment out of someone else's account. The bank absolutely refused to tell me who was paying my mortgage and who authorized it. I later found out that she was "renting" the house to my granddaughter. I never agreed to this, never saw or signed any lease or rental agreement. Today I find out that there's nearly $20K worth of damage and was told I can't evict her because my ex-DIL signed a lease

Elaine Shay · Answer

Since you own the property as joint tenants with your ex-daughter-in-law, there is no squatter to evict.  Your ex-daughter-in-law has as much right as you to rent or use the property.  Instead, what you will need to do is commence a partitition action to force a sale of the property and seek an accounting for the expenses you paid for without contribution from your co-owner.  Although an individual is not legally required to retain an attorney to commence a partition action, it would be foolish to proceed without an attorney.

Q: How do I legally evict a squatter from my jointly held property?