Tenancy

The classic concurrent-estate question hands you a conveyance “to A and B as joint tenants with right of survivorship,” then has one tenant mortgage, lease, or secretly deed away their share — and asks who owns what when that tenant dies. The answer hinges on severance: under the majority lien theory a mortgage by one tenant does not sever (survivorship survives), but in a title-theory minority it does. A unilateral lifetime conveyance severs; a will never severs, because survivorship vests at the instant of death before the will operates — the devise simply fails.

Don’t confuse a tenancy (concurrent ownership) with the duration concept tested under estate: co-tenants can hold their shared interest in fee or for life. The trap with tenancy by the entirety is that, on the majority rule, one spouse’s individual creditor cannot reach the property, and neither spouse can unilaterally partition it. Memory hook: a joint tenant who tries to defeat survivorship by will is “too late” — death wins the race.