Definition
Licitation is a civil law mechanism by which co-owners of undivided property — typically co-heirs or joint proprietors — submit the property to an internal auction among themselves, with ownership passing to the highest bidder on the condition that the winning bidder compensates each other co-proprietor for the value of their respective undivided share. The term also carries a broader, more general meaning: the act of offering any property for sale to the highest bidder.
The two senses are related but distinct in practice:
1. General sense: Any public offering for sale by auction; a bid or competitive offer.
2. Civil law partition sense: A specific legal proceeding in which jointly held property that cannot be conveniently divided in kind is sold by auction — either among the co-owners themselves or, by court order, to outside buyers — with the proceeds divided according to each owner's proportional interest. This is the sense that appears in Louisiana practice and other civil law–influenced jurisdictions.
In admiralty and maritime contexts, licitation appears as a remedy when co-owners of a vessel disagree over her use or disposition. A court may order licitation and partition of a moiety, effectively authorizing a judicial sale of one co-owner's share.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): auction.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "The act of offering for sale to the highest bidder."
The common meaning captures only the general transactional surface of the term. In legal usage, licitation is not merely any auction — it is a structured remedy tied to co-ownership, undivided interests, and the law of partition. Encountering licitation in a legal source and reading it simply as "auction" risks missing the specific procedural and property-law context that gives the term its operative meaning.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
Internal licitation: The auction is conducted among the co-owners themselves. The property does not pass to any outside buyer; it consolidates ownership within the existing group of proprietors, with the winning co-owner buying out the others at their proportional shares of the final bid price.
Judicial licitation (sale for partition): Ordered by a court when partition in kind is impracticable. The property is sold — sometimes to outside buyers, sometimes restricted to co-owners — and the proceeds are distributed. This form is more closely analogous to what common law jurisdictions call a partition sale or forced sale.
Maritime licitation: Applied to vessels when co-owners are deadlocked. A court may order the sale of one owner's moiety by licitation, resolving the dispute without necessarily dissolving the entire co-ownership.
Why It Matters in Research
Licitation is a civil law term with limited penetration into common law sources. Researchers working in common law jurisdictions may encounter it only in comparative law texts, Louisiana materials, or older admiralty sources — and may initially mistake it for a synonym of "auction" or "sale." That reading is incomplete.
The key research trap is jurisdictional. In Louisiana, licitation has doctrinal weight as a distinct partition remedy governed by the Civil Code, and cases discussing licitation operate within a civil law framework that does not map cleanly onto common law partition doctrine. Researchers importing Louisiana licitation analysis into a common law context — or vice versa — must account for this structural difference.
In historical sources, licitation appears with some frequency in treatises on co-ownership, succession, and admiralty through the 19th and early 20th centuries. It largely disappears from modern American legal writing outside Louisiana, replaced in common law practice by the vocabulary of partition suits, forced sales, and judicial auctions. When the term surfaces in older federal admiralty cases, it usually reflects the civil law background of maritime law rather than any adoption into general common law doctrine.
Researchers using the Law Mind corpus should note that Anderson's Dictionary of Law is the most practically useful of the historical sources on this term — it includes the admiralty application and the procedural detail (petition for sale, moiety) that Black's and Burrill's leave implicit. The Rapalje & Lawrence entry is the thinnest, providing little beyond the bare definition and an unexplained juxtaposition with unrelated historical curiosities.
Historical Dictionary Support
The five source dictionaries converge on the core definition without meaningful disagreement: licitation is an offering for sale to the highest bidder, and more specifically the civil law mechanism by which co-proprietors of undivided property auction it among themselves.
Burrill's is the most etymologically complete, tracing the term to the Latin licitatio and licitare (to bid, to offer a price), which reinforces its civil law pedigree. Black's (both editions) and Burrill's use nearly identical language — likely reflecting shared source material — and all three include the condition-of-payment structure (the winning bidder must compensate co-owners proportionally), which is the operative legal detail.
Anderson's adds the most practical content, specifying the admiralty application and noting that "the thing remains charged with unpaid shares" — a point the other dictionaries omit that has real consequences in partition proceedings. Rapalje & Lawrence is cursory and adds nothing not found in the others; the adjacent entries (licking of thumbs, Lidford law) suggest this section of that dictionary was assembled without close attention to civilian doctrine.
None of the historical dictionaries address the modern Louisiana statutory context or the procedural distinctions between internal licitation and judicial sale for partition. Researchers relying solely on these sources will have the conceptual framework but will need to consult civilian treatises or Louisiana jurisprudence for current procedural mechanics.
Jurisdictional Note
Licitation as a formal legal proceeding is most alive in Louisiana, which retains the civil law partition framework under which the term has doctrinal content. In other U.S. jurisdictions, the concept exists functionally under common law partition doctrine but the term itself is rarely used. In admiralty, the term appears in older federal cases regardless of the forum's general law tradition, owing to maritime law's civilian roots.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Co-ownership and Undivided Interests
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Partition (Judicial Sale)
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Maritime Co-ownership and Vessel Disputes