Under estate law, co-ownership of the property refers to a type of ownership in which more than one person has an ownership interest instead of sole ownership in a piece of real estate. Both joint tenancy and tenancy in common belong to a special type of co-ownership.
When two or more people hold title to real estate jointly and the title deed of the property works on the concept of unity providing equal share and equal rights in the property to each joint owner, the owners are known as joint tenants.
The term 'tenants in common' refers to a legal arrangement in which two or more people or parties share ownership interest in a real estate property but the co-ownership is not specifically stated. Tenants in common may hold different percentages or proportional financial shares of the property.
Tenants in common and joint tenants both are instances where the property is owned by multiple owners. While they are similar in many ways, they are inherently different.
Here are some of the features of tenancy in common and joint tenancy:
Both in a tenancy in common and joint tenancy each party owns a share of the entire property which means that specific areas of the house are not owned by one individual but are shared among the co-owners.
The key feature of tenancy in common is that the tenants in common may have unequal shares and different ownership interests. But in joint tenancy, the share of the co-owners must be equal and they have equal rights and obligations in the property.
A tenant in common does not possess a right of survivorship which is the most attractive feature of joint tenancy.
Under survivorship rights, if a joint tenant dies, his share of property directly passes to the other surviving co-owner(s). Under tenancy in common when one tenant dies his interests pass under the terms of his will or if he dies leaving no will, his interest is distributed under Intestate Estates Act.
In both types of ownership, the co-owners can be relatives, family members, couples, friends or business associates.
A tenancy in common can be broken if a partition action is filed or one or more co-owner(s) buys out the others. And in the case of joint tenancy, the agreement can be broken by changing the ownership arrangement to a tenancy in common for all joint tenants.
