Question

Alice, Billy, and Charlie decide to purchase a commercial real estate property, which they intend to own and manage as business partners. When asked by the seller how they want the deed conveyed to them, Alice, Billy, and Charlie tell the seller that they want to own the property as “joint tenants.” The deed is so prepared and reads as follows: O to Alice, Billy, and Charlie as joint tenants. After the partners have successfully operated the commercial property for 15 years, Charlie dies. Alice and Billy assume that because the deed has named them as “joint tenants” they will succeed to Charlie’s ownership interest in the property. However, when Charlie’s will is probated, the executor of Charlie’s estate determines that Charlie’s spouse and sole beneficiary under the will, is entitled to Charlie’s interest in the property.

If Alice and Billy challenge the decision by the executor in court, will they prevail?

What factors should the court consider in deciding who should succeed to Charlie’s interest?

What weight should be given to each of those factors?

Answer 1

Joint tenancy happens when the owners or buyers of a property have equal share in the deal. Moreover the ownership deed is also obtained at the same time by the owners of the property. In the given scenario, Alice, Billy and Charlie had joint tenancy for the commercial real estate property. However, when Charlie died, his will shifted the ownership rights of his part of property to his spouse. This made the spouse another partner of the commercial real estate property as Alice and Billy. However as the ownership rights were not obtained at the same time, the joint tenancy deed got shifted to tenancy in common.

If Alice and Billy had challenged the decision of shifting to ownership rights to Charlie’s spouse, they would have failed. This is so because the ownership rights were transferred to Charlie’s spouse based on the legal will of Charlie and hence is completely valid.

The factors which the court needs to consider in deciding who prevails to succeed Charlie’s interests are:

• The mental condition at which Charlie made the will
• The legality of the will

In my views, equal weightage must be given to all the stated factors. This is so because these factors help in establishing the legality of Charlie’s will and project its overall authenticity.