When you buy a home with someone in England or Wales, you choose how you’ll own it: as joint tenants or as tenants in common. You tell HM Land Registry when the property is registered. The choice decides what happens to the home if one of you dies, and what each of you can claim if you split up. (Scotland and Northern Ireland have different systems.)
The two types
| Joint tenants | Tenants in common | |
|---|---|---|
| Shares | Equal rights to the whole property | Can own different shares (for example 70/30) |
| If one owner dies | The property automatically goes to the other owners | Their share doesn’t automatically go to the other owners |
| Can you leave your share in a will? | No | Yes |
| Changing | Either owner can sever to become tenants in common | All owners can agree to become joint tenants |
When each suits
Joint tenants often suits married couples and civil partners who’ve put in similar amounts and want the home to pass to the survivor. For married couples and civil partners there’s also no inheritance tax on a home passing to the survivor.
Tenants in common often suits people who’ve put in different amounts, friends or family buying together, and couples with children from earlier relationships who want their share to go to them. Recording the shares in a declaration of trust (a document stating each owner’s share) avoids arguments later. A will matters here: without one, your share passes under the intestacy rules, which may not be who you’d choose.
Unmarried couples in particular should think about this. Citizens Advice notes that joint owners have equal rights to stay in the home, and that if you can’t agree what happens to it when you separate, you can ask a court to decide. If only one partner owns the home, the other may have to prove a ‘beneficial interest’ in court to claim a share. See buying a home with a partner.
Changing your type of ownership
From joint tenants to tenants in common (severance). You can do this without the other owners’ agreement:
- Serve a written notice of severance on the other owners (a conveyancer can help).
- Fill in form SEV to register a ‘Form A restriction’ with HM Land Registry (or form RX1 if you can’t provide the evidence form SEV asks for).
- Send it with the notice of severance to HM Land Registry’s Citizen Centre. There’s no fee.
If the other owners won’t sign the notice, you can instead send a letter certifying that you gave it to them, left it at their last known address in the UK, or sent it there by registered post or recorded delivery and it wasn’t returned. If all owners agree, you just send form SEV.
From tenants in common to joint tenants needs all the owners to agree, for example when a couple marries and wants equal rights to the whole property. There’s no fee for this change either.
Your type of ownership can sometimes change without you knowing, for example if one of the owners goes bankrupt. To check what you have, look at the transfer, lease or any declaration of trust, or ask a solicitor or conveyancer.
Related guides
- First-time buyers guide: costs, deposits, schemes and stamp duty relief in one place
- Buying a home with a partner: joint mortgages, unequal deposits and splitting up
- Helping your child buy a home: gifts, loans, guarantor and family mortgages
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