Concurrent ownership happens when two or more individuals simultaneously own a piece of property and have legal ownership rights. Any two or more people, or corporations, can purchase a property under the terms of concurrent ownership with each owner’s name documented on the title agreement. It is not required for the people involved in a concurrent ownership arrangement to be related. Likewise, when more than one person is the legal owner of a piece of real property, the rights and restrictions of that property are impacted.
Concurrent ownership interests are often divided into two basic categories: joint tenancy and tenancy in common. Joint tenancy is the most prevalent type of concurrent ownership interest.
Joint Tenancy
In the Joint tenancy form of co-ownership, each individual or entity in agreement holds an undivided interest in the real estate asset. Each owner’s claim of ownership must be identical and must commence concurrently with the same title documents. Assume that two individuals and one corporation enter into a joint tenancy arrangement to purchase an apartment complex. Each of the three must have an equal ownership stake in the property, i.e. possess a 33.33 percent ownership interest, and their ownership should begin concurrently and be formalized in the same document. If two joint tenants hold equal ownership in a property and a third is added later, the third owner is not regarded as a joint tenant with the previous owners. Having the same title interest also implies that each joint tenant owns an undivided share of the property and that no one has exclusive rights or possession. As a result, the joint tenancy requires the satisfaction of four unities: title, time, possession, and interest.
This is a dominant form of ownership among couples or married couples. When a couple buys a home, they sign on as joint tenants. If one spouse dies, their interest in the property gets directly transferred to the surviving partner.
Tenants in Common
Tenants in common co-ownership is a form of co-ownership in which two or more entities or individuals agree to share ownership rights in a property. However, unlike joint tenancy, tenants in common allow for each owner to have distinct interests in the property and own a different percentage of the property. And their dates of ownership do not have to coincide. Assume two individuals own a residence as tenants in common, and a third individual can enter into tenants in common arrangement with these former owners at any time in the future. Therefore, there is no requirement to use the same document either.
The primary distinction between this and joint tenancy is that there is no right of survivorship, and a deceased person’s interest is treated as an asset of the deceased and passes to their estate. No ownership is passed to surviving tenants in common. This type of ownership is most prevalent in the business partners who invest in real estate property as a joint venture. To sum up, tenants in common come with just one possession unity.
