What type of joint property owner am I?

agrinnall

My sister and I own a piece of land together, but I'm not sure whether we are joint tenants or tenants in common (this has come up as I'm about to update my will). The register of title says under section B: Proprietorship register (anonymised):

1. PROPRIETOR: my sister's name and address and my name and (incorrect) address.

2. The value stated at DD MMM YYYY was £nnn.

3. RESTRICTION: No disposition by a sole proprieter of the registered estate (except a trust corporation) under which capital money arises is to be registered unless ordered by an order of the court.


My guess is that point 3 suggest Joint Tenant, which is what I want, but I'd like to get confirmation if anybody knows for sure.

G_M

“Most jointly owned properties in England and Wales, by default, are owned as a beneficial joint tenancy. The main legal affect of this is that the joint owners each own 100% of the property and so if one owner dies the other owns the entire property without any further transactions or dispositions. This means that for Inheritance tax purposes the property does not form part of the deceased’s estate and does not therefore attract payment of tax.
One major disadvantage, however, is that the respective joint owners cannot Will their share of the property to someone else in the event of their death. To overcome this problem the beneficial joint tenancy needs to be severed and the Land Registry notified. This will change it to a Tenancy in Common.
You will know if your current mode of ownership is a tenancy in common as the following wording will be present in the B section of the Title Register:
RESTRICTION: No disposition by a sole proprietor of the registered estate (except a trust corporation) under which capital money arises is to be registered unless authorised by an order of the Registrar or the court.
If the above wording is not present the mode of joint ownership is a beneficial joint tenancy.

agrinnall

Thanks G_M, looks like I was 100% wrong in my interpretation (otherwise known as a guess!) then. Luckily it seems to be fairly easy to switch from one mode to the other as long as the other tenant agrees, there are forms on the LR site for doing it in either direction.

G_M

agrinnall wrote: »

Thanks G_M, looks like I was 100% wrong in my interpretation (otherwise known as a guess!) then. Luckily it seems to be fairly easy to switch from one mode to the other as long as the other tenant agrees, there are forms on the LR site for doing it in either direction.

Correct.

As long as there's no disagreement or mortgage, you should not need a solicitor, just use the appropriate forms which you seem to have found.

Mojisola

agrinnall wrote: »

I'm not sure whether we are joint tenants or tenants in common (this has come up as I'm about to update my will).

My guess is that point 3 suggest Joint Tenant, which is what I want,

If you are joint tenants, then the property won't be part of your estate - if you want someone other than your sister to inherit your share, you need to own it as tenants in common.

agrinnall

G_M wrote: »

Correct.

As long as there's no disagreement or mortgage, you should not need a solicitor, just use the appropriate forms which you seem to have found.

No mortgage, and hopefully no disagreement, I don't think either of use were aware of the implications of the two types of tenancy as the registration was done by our mother's solicitor when the original family home was sold (this was a 1 acre strip of the 4 acres adjoining the house).

Mojisola wrote: »

If you are joint tenants, then the property won't be part of your estate - if you want someone other than your sister to inherit your share, you need to own it as tenants in common.

Yes, I knew that, although only today when I started to look into it while gathering the documents for the will update. I was hoping that it would be excluded from the need to mention it in the will, but as G_M has found it's a joint tenancy I either need to convert it to joint tenants [STRIKE]in common[/STRIKE], make it a specific bequest to my sister, or assume (almost certainly correctly) that it will form part of the residue that goes to her anyway.

Mojisola

agrinnall wrote: »

I was hoping that it would be excluded from the need to mention it in the will, but as G_M has found it's a joint tenancy I either need to convert it to tenants in common, make it a specific bequest to my sister, or assume (almost certainly correctly) that it will form part of the residue that goes to her anyway.

If the property is owned as joint tenants, when one of you dies the property becomes wholly-owned by the survivor.

It does not become part of the deceased owner's estate so it will not form part of the residue.

agrinnall

Mojisola wrote: »

If the property is owned as joint tenants, when one of you dies the property becomes wholly-owned by the survivor.

It does not become part of the deceased owner's estate so it will not form part of the residue.

Sorry, that was a mistake on my part, I meant convert to joint tenants precisely for the reason you give. Corrected now.