Facts
The property "[J.] " in [K.] is held in co-ownership and comprises five apartments. For decades, the individual apartments were assigned to specific co-owners, who used them exclusively and, in particular, were able to rent them out. [L.] managed the property from 1983 and also handled the rental of the apartments for several co-owners. The co-owners settled the total rental income and property costs in proportion to their shares from 1994.
On August 18, 2009, [D.] , [H.] , and [I.] (plaintiffs) initiated proceedings for judicial dissolution of the co-ownership against [A.] , [B.] , and [C.] (defendants). They requested that the co-ownership of "[J.] " be dissolved, that the public auction be ordered for partition, that the defendants be ordered to hand over all extracts and documents related to various accounts from January 1, 1999, and that the defendants be ordered to compensate the plaintiffs for any profit from the property settlement from January 1, 1999, until the final partition.
The parties concluded a partial settlement on November 9, 2010, whereby the property was to be appraised, the appraisal was to be recognized within a certain range, the co-ownership shares of the plaintiffs were to be transferred to the defendants at the fixed price, and the court was to be authorized to register the transfer of ownership in the land register after receipt of the fixed price on the court's account.
The plaintiffs withdrew their complaint on December 6, 2013. The Regional Court struck the proceedings from the record due to the withdrawal of the complaint. The issue of cost settlement remained reserved.
The defendants filed a cantonal appeal on December 31, 2013, with the requests to revoke the dismissal order and instruct the lower court to schedule a new hearing for the continuation of the proceedings, alternatively to pay out the amount of CHF 172,666.70 deposited with the court to the defendants, and to instruct the lower court to provisionally pay out the amount of CHF 172,666.70 deposited with the court only after the final settlement of all appeal proceedings.
Considerations
The Federal Court has combined the two appeal proceedings and decided them in a single judgment. The defendants' appeal is directed against the dismissal of their cantonal appeal and thus against the dismissal of the proceedings. They request the continuation of the proceedings.
The…