Pg 15

Question 1

What is a concurrent estate?

Answer 1

Whenever two or more people have a concurrent and equal right to the possession and use of the same parcel of land.

Question 2

What are the different forms that concurrent estates can come in?

Answer 2

Joint tenancy, tenants by entirety, tenancy in common, community property

Question 3

When dealing with a concurrent estate, can one single owner have a right to exclude other co-owners?

Answer 3

No, but they can collectively exclude the rest of the world

Question 4

What are the four unities that are considered in concurrent estates?

Answer 4

• time: All tenants must take their interests at the same time
  – title: all tenants must take their interest from the same source/instrument (deed, will, or intestate)
  – interest: all tenants must have an equal and identical interest in the property
  – possession: all tenants must have an equal right to possess the entire property

Question 5

If there’s an ambiguous grant made of property, what is the common law and modern approach to that?

Answer 5

• common law: it is presumed to be a joint tenancy unless stated otherwise
  – modernly: it is presumed to be a tenancy in common unless stated otherwise

Question 6

How do you negate the presumptions made for ambiguous grants?

Answer 6

You must specifically mention that it is a joint tenancy or a tenancy in common or has a right of survivorship

Question 7

What does occupancy mean?

Answer 7

Can mean to hold possession, but you needn’t be physically present to occupy land. You just have to exercise the ordinary care of a prudent person for the land’s preservation and protection, and commit no acts that would permanently injure the remainder interest.

Question 8

Each cotenant holds what?

Answer 8

A separate, undivided interest in the property, and has an unrestricted right to possess the entire property, regardless of the size of the interest held by each

Question 9

How do you deal with concurrent estates on an essay?

Answer 9

– What type of tenancy is it issue? JT, TIC, TBE. If ambiguous, discuss common law and modern
– what are the rights of possession?
– What are the remedies? I.e.: compel, occupancy, seek partition, sale of property

Question 10

What is tenancy in common?

Answer 10

This is the most common type. It involves two or more co-owners, each with an undivided fractional share in the land.

• It has the right to use all of the land subject to the right of the other co-owner to do the same thing.
• It is freely alienable, so it can be sold or devised by will.
• It has no right of survivorship.
• All that is needed is a unity of possession, which means that each co-T must have the equal right of possession

Question 11

Can G grant land to A and B where he gives A a 25% interest and B a 75% interest?

Answer 11

Yes, the tenants have an undivided interest in the property in that neither of them can exclude the other from any portion of it, but it doesn’t have to mean that their interests are equal

Question 12

If two people hold land as tenants in common, and A holds a 25% interest while B holds a 75% interest, and they sell the land for $10,000, what does each person take?

Answer 12

A takes $2500 and B takes $7500