David L. Banks v. Mackie H. Banks

GLASSCOCK, Vice Chancellor

At common law, real property transferred equally to two or more persons jointly was presumed to be held thereafter by those persons as joint tenants with right of survivorship, unless the documents of transfer provided explicitly that the property would be held as tenants in common. 1 The primary difference between these types of joint estates is the treatment of ownership following the death of a joint tenant: in the case of the former, the decedent’s interest automatically vests in the. surviving .joint tenant; in the latter case, the fractional interest held by…