As a Notary Public a big part of my job involves advising homeowners on the different legal aspects of their property ownership. Whenever more than one person shares title to a property they must decide on the type of co ownership they are going to have. The two major types are joint tenancy and tenancy in common. There is indeed a rich historically relevant set of legal differences between the two but most of that is not relevant to the average homeowner.
There are, however, two main differences that should be be considered when making the decision. The first and most key of the differences is that joint tenancy operates with the right of survivorship. This means upon the passing away of one of the owners, their share in the home ceases to exist and is passed equally into the remaining owners’ shares. As an example, if there were 3 joint owners of one property in equal shares and one of them passed away, the remaining two owners would then be joint owners with a 50:50 split of the property. This is called a transmission and it keeps the property out of the deceased person’s estate. Upon the passing away of a tenant in common, however, their share of the property would be considered part of their estate and be split up according to their will. The bigger estate planning implications of this will be described in a future article on estates.
The next main difference between the types of tenancies is with percentage of interests. In joint tenancy all the co-owners must have an equal share in the property, such as 50:50, or 25:25:25:25 etc..., whereas tenants in common can share in differing percentages such as 80:20, 10:20:70 and so on.
Joint tenancy is often used by spouses, close family members where as tenants in common might by more common in business partnerships, blended families or friends.
Hassan El Masri B.Sc. M.A.(ALS)
Notary Public, W. Masri Notary Corporation
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