👥 Co-Ownership

When two or more people hold title together, the form of co-ownership decides what each owner can sell, will, and inherit.

🎯 Learning Objectives

Distinguish ownership in severalty from co-ownership
Compare tenancy in common and joint tenancy — especially survivorship
Recognize tenancy by the entirety and the partition remedy

Severalty First — One Owner

Ownership in severalty means title held by one person or one legal entity. The word comes from “severed” — the owner’s interest is cut off from everyone else’s. Everything else in this topic involves concurrent ownership: two or more owners at the same time.

Tenancy in Common (TIC)

Each co-owner holds an undivided fractional interest — a percentage of the whole, not a specific room or corner
Shares may be unequal (60/40 is fine)
Each owner may sell, mortgage, or will their share independently
No right of survivorship — a deceased owner’s share passes to their heirs
This is the default form when a deed to multiple owners doesn’t specify otherwise

Joint Tenancy — The Survivorship Estate

Joint tenancy requires the four unities, remembered as P.I.T.T.:

Unity	Requirement
Possession	All owners hold an undivided right to possess the whole
Interest	All shares are equal
Time	All interests acquired at the same moment
Title	All owners acquired through the same document

The defining feature is the right of survivorship: when a joint tenant dies, their interest passes directly to the surviving joint tenants — bypassing the will and probate entirely. That’s why joint tenancy is nicknamed the “poor man’s will.”

📌 Exam trap: If a joint tenant sells their interest during life, the buyer joins as a tenant in common with the others — the sale breaks the unities of time and title for that share.

Tenancy by the Entirety & Community Property

Tenancy by the entirety is a special survivorship form available only to married couples in some states — the couple is treated as one legal owner, and neither spouse can convey alone. Community property states treat most property acquired during marriage as owned 50/50 by the spouses. Alabama is neither: it is a common-law (separate property) state, so married Alabamians typically co-own as joint tenants or tenants in common — a distinction worth knowing for the national exam.

When Co-Owners Can’t Agree: Partition

A partition suit asks a court to end the co-ownership — either by physically dividing the land (partition in kind) or, far more commonly, by ordering a sale and splitting the proceeds according to each owner’s share.

🔑 Key Takeaways

Severalty = one owner; concurrent = two or more
TIC: unequal shares allowed, inheritable, no survivorship — and it’s the default
Joint tenancy: four unities (PITT) + right of survivorship
Selling a joint-tenancy share converts the buyer to a tenant in common
Partition is the court remedy when co-owners deadlock

4.2 Co-Ownership