Deducting a broker's fee from the price of heirs' land

A question about land jointly owned by heirs and sold through a broker, in which Jordan's General Iftaa Department answered that the broker's fee is deducted from the price before division, each heir bearing it in proportion to his share, provided all the heirs agreed to sell through the broker. ¹

The questioner said land jointly owned by several heirs was sold through a broker, and asked whether the broker's fee is deducted from the price before it is divided, noting that one heir, the father's wife, had died and her heirs were not told of the fee. ¹

The Department answered that heirs are joint owners of the estate, and in joint ownership each partner bears costs in proportion to his share, since liability follows gain; the broker's fee is a cost of dividing the estate, and it quoted Zakariyya al-Ansari's Asna al-Matalib that a divider's fee is split by shares, not by heads. ¹ It said that if the sale was made with the permission of the father's wife's heirs, they bear the broker's fee with the other heirs, since a broker works only for a fee, and what is customary counts as if stipulated. ¹ It concluded that the broker's fee is deducted from the land's price before division if all the heirs agreed to sell through him, and this applies to the father's wife's heirs too, as long as they agreed to the sale. ¹

Jordan's General Iftaa Department published this fatwa on aliftaa.jo as no. 3887, dated 10 June 2024. ¹ The museum records this text as a historical document attributed to the body or scholar that issued it; it issues no ruling of its own.