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Home > Law > Law glossary > Law glossary
joint tenancy
Last modified: Thu Feb 23 16:37:37 2006
If one or more people have an InterestInLand
as joint tenants, then they are co-owners of that land.
This form of CoOwnershipOfLand is characterised by the indivisibility
of the estate: no individual joint tenant can identify his
specific `piece' of the estate. This means that the estate
can only be transmitted in its entirety, and if one of
the joint tenants dies his share is not inheritable by
his successors (`RightOfSurvivorShip'). This is in contrast to the
concept of
TenancyInCommon, where each owner has
a specific interest that is transmissible.
Under the LawOfPropertyAct1925 the joint tenancy
is the only legal form of co-ownership of land. This form of co-ownership is
appropriate for, for example, married couples, but it is not very useful to
businesses, who usually prefer a tenancy in common. To create a
tenancy in common requires that the legal owners hold the property
on trust as a tenancy in common for the beneficiaries. In such cases
it is quite common for the trustees and the beneficiaries to be
the same people - this is simply the device that the law has created
to give effect to a tenancy in common.
LandAndPropertyLaw
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