Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: questions about JTROS

Ordinarily, joint tenants are 50-50 co-owners. In your case, as I know from your prior questions on LawGuru, your joint tenancy may itself be derived from a fractional interest. I have seen at least ten questions you've asked about this same house and same situation; as I've said before, your ownership may be anywhere from 25% to perhaps 100% depending largely on how your parents first took title - and that's something you either don't know or haven't told us. It's like asking how much water is in the Mississippi River based on knowing only that the Ohio Rover flows into it. One must go back further upstream in the chain of title to know all the pieces of your ownership or lack thereof, just as calculating the flow of the Big Muddy requires knowing about the Missouri and a bunch of other tributaries as well as the Ohio's contribution. Your earlier deed from your father may have given you nothing, or it may have made you a joint tenant as to a half interest and upon his death you got the other half, but more likely your father could not give you any interest because during his marriage to your mother the house was community property and a transfer of any interest to you would have required both of their signatures. Go get a real estate lawyer in the county where the house is. This is the only way you're going to figure out what your percentage ownership is.... Anyone who can't do a pretty thorough title search is going to be guessing!