Joint Tenancy is Fragile

You’ve been hearing about Joint Tenants vs. Tenants in Common since your first real estate exam.

And I’m not going to bore you with the distinctions for the hundredth time.

(But if you do want a refresher, I recorded a full video on it this week)

Today, I want to cover a lesser-known point about joint tenancy:

Joint tenancy can be severed... unilaterally.

When two or more owners take title as joint tenants, they get the right of survivorship.

Meaning: if one owner dies, their interest passes automatically to the surviving owner(s), outside their estate.

And while that may have been the plan when they purchased, plans change.

Maybe one owner later decides they don’t want the other owner to automatically receive their share if they die.

Here’s the part that surprises people:

You don’t need the other owner’s consent to sever a joint tenancy.

It's not an “amendment” that requires everyone to agree.

Joint tenancy is fragile.

A single joint tenant can take steps to sever it.

The most common method is to register a transfer to themselves that breaks the joint tenancy.

This has the effect of converting the ownership into a tenancy in common.

And once it’s severed:

• the right of survivorship is gone, and
• that owner’s share no longer “automatically” passes to the other owner(s) on death — it passes through the owner’s estate instead.

I’ve even had a situation once where a surviving spouse called to do the Survivorship Application after her husband passed away, only to learn the joint tenancy had been severed earlier, without her realizing it.

Latest YouTube Video:
Joint Tenants or Tenants in Common?