Sharing Property: Concurrent Ownership

• Author: Alan R. Romero
• Profession: Professor of law and Director of the Rural Law Center at the University of Wyoming College of Law
• Pages: 159-180

Chapter 10

Sharing Property: Concurrent

Ownership

In This Chapter

▶ Understanding concurrent ownership

▶ Creating and distinguishing the types of concurrent ownership

▶ Examining the rights and duties among concurrent owners

▶ Terminating concurrent ownership

▶ Looking at condominium ownership

M

ultiple people can own an estate concurrently. Three forms of

concurrent ownership exist. They all share the same basic

characteristics, but two of them come with the right to own the other’s

shares in the property when they die.

Whatever the form of concurrent ownership, the co-owners have the same

right to use and enjoy the property and the same duty to take care of it.

One’s use of the property can significantly affect the other’s use, so various

rules govern the rights and duties of the co-owners in relation to each other.

If one or more of the co-owners don’t want to continue that relationship, they

can change or terminate their co-ownership.

This chapter fills you in as to how more than one person can own the same

estate in the same property. It examines how each type of concurrent

ownership is created and how they vary from one another. It also looks at

the rules governing the relationship among co-owners and how concurrent

ownership ends. The last section introduces you to condominium ownership,

which combines concurrent ownership of some things and separate

ownership of other things.

160 Part III: Looking at Shared and Divided Property Ownership

Concurrent Ownership: Owning the

Same Property at the Same Time

Concurrent ownership means that two or more people have the same rights

to use and enjoy the same property at the same time. Concurrent ownership

has three forms, which may be called concurrent estates:

✓ Tenancy in common

✓ Joint tenancy

✓ Tenancy by the entirety

A fundamental characteristic of any type of concurrent ownership is the unity

of possession, meaning that each co-owner has an equal right to use and enjoy

the entire property that’s co-owned; there are no physical boundaries among

cotenants. Each co-owner has an undivided interest in the whole property.

Both real and personal property may be co-owned in these ways, but I focus

on real property in this chapter.

Even though the forms of concurrent ownership are sometimes called

concurrent estates, the concurrent estates are different relationships among

co-owners of an estate, not different time periods of ownership. Any of the

present estates I cover in Chapter 9 may be co-owned in one of the three

forms of concurrent estates. For example, a group of people may own a fee

simple determinable in tenancy in common or in a joint tenancy. A group of

people also may co-own a future interest, although of course they don’t have

the right of possession until their future interest becomes a present estate.

To help you avoid confusing the present and future estates with concurrent

ownership, I generally refer to forms of concurrent ownership rather than

concurrent estates.

Concurrent owners may be called cotenants, and any of the three kinds of

concurrent ownership may be referred to as a cotenancy. Sometimes, however,

the term “cotenant” is used to refer specifically to tenants in common. In this

chapter, I use the term cotenant to refer to concurrent owners in any of the

three types of concurrent estates.

Getting Familiar with

Tenancy in Common

The tenancy in common is the most common form of concurrent ownership.

As with all three forms of concurrent ownership, each tenant in common has a

right to use the whole co-owned property. However, even though their right to