Agreement by Unmarried Individuals to Purchase and Hold Residence as Joint Tenants

Co ownership of real property can be in the following forms:

" Tenancy in common, in which the interest of each owner may be transferred or inherited;
" Joint tenancy, in which the tenants each have a right of survivorship;
" Tenants by the entirety, in which a husband and wife own property and have a right of survivorship; or
" Community property, which applies in some States to property acquired during the period of a marriage.

The phrase joint tenancy refers to a method of ownership by which one person mutually holds legal title to property with other persons in such a way that when one of the joint owners dies his share automatically passes to the surviving joint owners by operation of law.

Traditionally, when two or more people own real property together, they hold it as tenants in common. Owning real property as joint tenants with full rights of survivorship has, in the past, been usually been limited to married couples or other close kinship. However, there is no reason that single unmarried people cannot own property in a joint tenancy arrangement.