Joint Tenants or Tenants in Common? Buying a Home Together

The difference in one table

	Joint tenants	Tenants in common
Shares	No separate shares. You own the whole together.	Each owns a share, equal or unequal.
If one owner dies	The other automatically owns it all, whatever a will says.	The share passes under the will, or the intestacy rules if there isn't one.
If you split up	Usually 50/50 unless you can prove otherwise.	The shares you agreed, if you wrote them down.
Land Registry	No restriction on the title.	A "Form A" restriction on the title.

Either way, you are both "joint tenants" of the legal title. That's a technical rule of land law. What changes is who owns the value behind it, called the beneficial interest. When people say "tenants in common" they mean that.

Which suits you

Joint tenants suits couples who are putting in the same, or who want everything to pass to the other on death regardless. Many married couples choose it for that reason.

Tenants in common suits you if your deposits are different, you aren't married, you have children from another relationship, or you're buying with a friend or relative. It's the only way to have unequal shares.

How you choose when buying

Your conveyancer will ask. The transfer form (TR1) has a box for how you'll hold the property: as joint tenants, as tenants in common in equal shares, or on some other trust, such as one set out in a declaration of trust. If you want unequal shares, tell your conveyancer you're buying as tenants in common and that you have a declaration of trust. Our guide to the TR1 box explains why you need both.

The Land Registry then adds a Form A restriction to your title. It stops a single surviving owner selling without a second trustee, which protects the dead owner's share.

Changing from joint tenants to tenants in common

You can change at any time, and one owner can do it without the other agreeing. This is called severing the joint tenancy. You give the other owner written notice, then apply to the Land Registry for a Form A restriction using form SEV. There's no fee.

Severing on its own makes your shares equal. If you want unequal shares, you also need a declaration of trust that you both sign.

Don't forget a will

As tenants in common, your share doesn't automatically go to the other owner (see what happens if a co-owner dies). If you want it to, make a will that says so. Without one, it goes under the intestacy rules, which leave nothing to an unmarried partner.

Joint tenants or tenants in common?