You're looking at a deed after a parent's death, preparing to buy a home with a relative, or wondering whether your spouse will inherit the house without probate. The words joint tenancy may seem to answer the question. But the deed can determine something your family hasn't discussed: whether the surviving owner receives the property…
An undivided interest means each co-owner has rights to possess and use the entire property, not a physically carved-out room, lot, or parcel. Under California law, co-owners may hold different percentage shares while still owning the whole property concurrently. A common Orange County probate dispute begins with a family home. A parent dies, two siblings…
A parent dies, and the family assumes the house will pass to the surviving child or spouse. Then someone reads the deed and discovers that the property was held as tenancy in common, not with a right of survivorship. The deceased owner's share may now belong to the estate, creating a probate matter, possible disagreement…
A survivorship deed is a way to hold title so that property passes automatically to a co-owner when one owner dies, instead of going through probate. Most often, it works through joint tenancy with right of survivorship, and in some states survivorship only works if the surviving owner lives at least 120 hours longer than…
A lot of California families arrive at the same idea the same way. A parent owns a home in Orange County or Los Angeles, wants to spare the family from probate, and hears that adding a child to title with a quitclaim deed with rights of survivorship is the simplest fix. It can work. It…