When a co owner of property dies, what happens to his or her share of the real estate?

Attys. Tom Olsen: A text from Dan. He's listening from Orlando. Dan says he owns a piece of property in Florida with his brother. He wants to know what happens to it when Dan passes away.

Attys. Holley Knapik: Oh, that's a really good question. What we'd want to do is get a copy of the deed to see how the property is titled between Dan and his brother. We're looking for a certain language, so we want to know if there's wording after their names. If not, we want to know. If there's nothing after their names, it's owned by Dan and Dan's brother, then automatically that defaults to an ownership known as tenants in common. It means that the two of them own the property. They have rights to the property, but it's a 50/50. There's two brothers, so half and half.

If something happens to Dan, then his brother will have to probate Dan's half interest in order to get total ownership of the property. If Dan and brother own that property, and we read the deed and it says tenants in common after their name, that's exactly how they own it, 50/50. Again, brother's probating Dan's half interest in order to own the property outright.

Now, if after their names the language joint tenants with rights of survivorship is listed, then if something happens to Dan, Dan's brother will record his death certificate in the county where the property is located, and the brother automatically now is the owner of the property 100% because the magic language, we like to call it magic language, joint tenants with rights of survivorship.

Attys. Tom: Holly, let me clarify just a little bit in that is that we don't know what Dan wants to have happen when the property-- his 1/2 interest in the property when he passes away. Dan maybe thinking, "Hey, when I pass away, I want my 1/2 interest to go to my wife or my kids." If they're tenants in common and Dan passes away, what happens to his 1/2 interest will be dictated by what Dan's will happens to say, which might say to his wife, might say to his kids.

Attys. Holley: Absolutely, yes.

Attys. Tom: Dan, who just texted, if Dan is thinking, "Hey, if I pass away, I do want my 1/2 interest to go to my brother," then Dan and his brother may want to redo their deed and make sure that they are joint tenants rights of survivorship.

Attys. Holley: You're correct. Absolutely.

Attys. Tom: Now, when people ask us this question, the first thing that we can do is we can go into the public records and we can get a copy of their deed. We can confirm what their deed happens to say. Dan, we don't know really what you want to have happen when you pass away, but step number one, we'd call the Olsen Law Group in Orlando next week. We'll pull up a copy of your deed. We'll tell you what it says, tell you what the result of that is. Then we can make sure that it is going to comply with whatever your goal happens to be.

Attys. Holley: Exactly, exactly.

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