Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: Real Estate Joint Tenancy

Yes, but once the person at issue adds another individual to the co-ownership equation, the original joint tenancy interest would automatically be destroyed, and the other co-owners would then become tenants in common with the new person added to title.

Re: Real Estate Joint Tenancy

A joint tenant can deal only with his or her partial interest. For example, in the usual case where there are two joint tenants, X and Y, X can sell 1/2 of his interest to Z. When that happens, there are three tenants in common - the joint tenancy disappears entirely - with X holding 25%, Y holding 50%, and Z holding 25%.

Joint tenancies require certain conditions to be present for their formation and are fragile, so that any change in ownership destroys them and ownership falls back to the less specialized and more general form of co-ownership, the tenancy in common. The historical reason probably has to do with the right of survivorship that is a characteristic of joint tenancy. The law doesn't want such a right adhering to co-ownership unless all the co-owners really intend that a surviving owner, rather than a deceased owner's heirs, get his/her interest upon his/her death.

To go back to your question, yes, a part owner of real property can sell, rent, take out loans on, and otherwise deal with his/her half interest without the consent of the other part owner(s). This often results in friction and serious problems, and for that reason the law provides unhappy co-owners with a remedy - the lawsuit for "partition" of the property. Traditionally, this was done by physically dividing the farm, but in modern urban societies and with zoning, etc. restrictions on subdivision, partition is much more often done nowadays by court-ordered sale of the property and division of the net proceeds.