your property:
How do you own it?
W
hen it comes to
estate planning it’s
very important that
you know how you own your
property. Is your property owned
by you or your partner solely? If
you own the property together
do you know if you own it as ‘joint
tenants’ or ‘tenants in common’,
and what implications this will
have for your estate planning? an owner the property passes
automatically to the surviving
owner, this concept is known as
‘survivorship’.
Property may be held in a
person’s sole name or jointly
with others. If property is held in
your sole name you may need
to consider what would happen
to that property when you pass
away and how you should
protect your partner. You may
want to ensure that they can
continue to live in the property
after your death, but without
gifting the property to them. Where property is held as tenants
in common each owner has a
defined share in the property.
For most couples this will mean
that each has a 50% share in the
property, but the shares can be
unequal if you agree to hold it
this way. Holding as tenants in
common will mean that you may
gift your share of the property to
other people by your will, or into
trust on your death.
If you own the property jointly
there are two different types of
joint ownership that you should
be aware of. The first is ‘joint
tenants’. When property is held
as joint tenants each person
owns 100% of the property.
Neither owner has a share of
the property that they may gift
by their will. On the death of The process of changing from
joint tenants to tenants in
common is relatively straight
forward and involves completing
a form for the Land Registry if
your property is registered. For
advice on how to do this or what
you should do if your property is
unregistered your local Society
Member will be happy to help.
14
The Society of Will Writers
It is possible to change how
you hold the property to avoid it
passing by survivorship. To do
this you should discuss severing
your joint tenancy so that you
hold as ‘tenants in common’.