Tenancy In Common - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition tenancy-in-common

Definition :

Tenancy in Common. Legal estate in undivided shares inland has been abolished by the Law of Property Act, 1925, s. 1, which reduced the interest of tenants-in-common to that of a cestui que trust under a trust for sale of land. The following notes have been kept verbatim to explain titles as they existed immediately before 1926. This estate is created when several persons have several distinct estates, either of the same or of a different quantity, in any subject of property, in equal or unequal shares, and either by the same act or by several acts, and by several titles, and not a joint title. A tenancy-in-common will, as a rule, be construed to exist wherever the instrument creating it indicates that the land is to be held in shares, equally, or in moieties, or the nature of the transaction is such as to preclude the intention of survivorship such as an acquisition of land by partners for the purposes of their business.

A tenancy-in-common differs from a joint-tenancy in this respect: joint-tenants have one estate in the whole, and no estate in any particular part; they have the power of alienation over their respective aliquot parts, and by exercising that power, may give a separate and distinct right to their particular parts. Tenants-in-common have several and dis-tinct estates in their respective parts which may be in unequal shares and for estates of unequal duration; hence the difference in the several modes of alienation and assurance by them. Each tenant-in-common has, in contemplation of law, a distinct tenement and a distinct freehold.

Tenants-in-common hold by unity of possession, because neither of them knows his own severalty, and therefore they all occupy promiscuously. This is the only unity belonging to the estate; for since the tenants may hold different kinds of interest, so there exists no necessary unity of interest, and there is no unity of title, for one may claim by descent, and another by purchase; also the estate may vest in each tenant at different times. There being no entirety of interest among tenants-in-common, each is seised of a distinct though undivided share; they hold neither 'per mie' (not at all) nor 'per tout' and consequently the jus accrescendi does not apply to them.

This estate is subject to curtesy and dower. It is dissolvable--

(1) By a voluntary deed of partition;

(2) By the union of all the titles and interests in one tenant by grant, devise, surrender, or otherwise, which reduces the whole estate to a severalty;

(3) By compulsory partition.

See PARTITION; UNDIVDED SHARES.