29. Normally, where a group of persons have not become co-owners by their own volition with a common purpose, they cannot be considered as a “person”. When the children of the owner of a property succeed to his property by testamentary succession or inherit by operation of law, they become co-owners, but the co-ownership is not by volition of parties nor do they have any common purpose. Each can act in regard to his/her share, on his/her own, without any right or obligation towards the other owners. The legal heirs though co-owners, do not automatically become an “association of persons/body of individuals”. When different persons buy undivided shares in a plot of land and engage a common developer to construct an apartment building, with individual ownership in regard to respective apartment and joint ownership of common areas, the co-owners of the plot of land, do not become an “association of persons/body of individuals”, in the absence of a deeming provision in a statute or an agreement. Similarly, when two or more persons merely purchase a property, under a common sale deed, without any agreement to have a common or joint venture, they will not become an “association of persons/body of individuals”. Mere purchase under a common deed without anything more, will not convert a co-ownership into a joint enterprise. Thus when there are ten co-owners of a property, they are ten persons and not a “body of individuals” to be treated as a “single person”. But if the co-owners proceed further and enter into an arrangement or agreement to have a joint enterprise or venture to produce a common
