Owning property with others is often laden with pitfalls. Problems arise more easily than do means for solving them. In its recent opinion Hrit v. McKeon, the Michigan Court of Appeals clarified this to be doubly true for co-owners who hold property in joint tenancy with a right of survivorship. They, the Court held, are truly together for the long haul.
Under Michigan law, joint tenants hold an undivided interest in the property they own together. Generally, under a “standard” joint tenancy, a joint tenant has the right to terminate the tenancy without the consent of the other tenants, and force a sale or partition of the property.
Michigan law also provides for an alternative form of joint tenancy, known as a joint tenancy with the right of survival. This form of joint tenancy is created by the insertion of language such as “as joint tenants with right of survivorship” or “to the owners and the survivor of them” into the conveying documents. Also known as an “indestructible” joint tenancy, this form of tenancy means that when one joint tenant dies, that tenant’s ownership stake passes directly to the other joint tenants.
In Hrit v. McKeon, the Court of Appeals clarified just how indestructible this form of joint tenancy really is in the case of residential real estate. Individuals owning residential real estate as joint tenants with the right of survivorship, the court reasoned, do not have the right to unilaterally demand the sale or partition of property. The only way out for such joint tenants is a universal agreement of each joint tenant to sell, or death.
To support this conclusion, the court reasoned that since the right of survivorship inherent in indestructible joint tenancy requires that a tenant’s ownership revert to the other tenants in the event of his or her death, the only thing a joint tenant could possibly sell would be the right to own the real estate for the remainder of the seller’s life. Making the finding that there exists no market for the sale of rights in residential property based on the life of another, nor is there any practicable way to partition residential real estate, the court ruled that in asking it to force such a sale or partition the plaintiff had made a claim on which no relief could be granted.
Following Hrit v. McKeon, owners of residential real estate are on notice that if such property is held in joint tenancy with a right of survivorship, they can likely count on it remaining so until death do the joint tenants part.
Written by Jack Carver.
My father, who is her ex-husband have always been able to maintain familiar harmony had fallen extremely ill and was hospitalized for 40 days, he lived by himself, and needed to live with someone, so my mother offered which was a surprise to me, but he needed my help. While he was living there he told me how badly she talks behind my back and he heard her on several occasions call me fat, a cow, ugly, and stupid the list goes on and I am being non-derogatory. I have not been able to maintain a job after my dad fell ill, because he has multiple problems such as kidney failure, congestive heart failure, cancer, a stoma because he had to have emergency surgery. She did not help me one bit except she made breakfast and would not even follow his dietary guidelines. She decided to throw him out after realizing he was not going to go along with her plan to get me off the deed. My dad who was very ill had to live in his truck for a few weeks before finding a place. His kidney got worse and the dialysis center in Monroe was unable to help him, so I had to move him to Toledo Ohio. I am also going to school, which was agreed upon when I moved into my mother home. I am not allowed to have people live there?