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Joint Ownership of Real Estate: What you do not know may surprise you
Posted by: Marlyn Wiener
June 26, 2008
Topic: Joint Ownership of Real Estate: What you do not know may surprise you
I often represent non-married individuals buying property as joint owners; typically a couple engaged to be married buying their first home. Since they are not yet married, they cannot acquire the property as tenants by the entireties - that category is reserved for husbands and wives. Their choice - owning as joint tenants or joint tenants with rights of survivorship. If they acquire the property as joint tenants - and one of them dies before they marry - the share of the property owned by the deceased will be inherited by the deceased heirs - typically the decedent's family. If the property is acquired as joint tenants with rights of survivorship - the share owned by the deceased will be inherited by the joint owner - the fiancé. A very different result based on the inclusion of the magic words "with rights of survivorship".
I reviewed a deed recently where a parcel of vacant land was held by two business partners as joint tenants. One partner died and the surviving partner was planning on selling the entire property to a developer and pocketing the net sales proceeds. Unfortunately, the surviving partner did not understand that he and his partner had acquired the property as joint tenants - and not as joint tenants with rights of survivorship. He was quite surprised to learn that the share owned by the deceased partner would be distributed to the heirs of the deceased partner - and that those heirs were now his partners in the deal!
