Article: `Joint Tenancy' Not Always Best Solution

Q. Your recent piece on tenancy by the entireties shattered my faith in joint tenancy, something I always took as gospel. But, as was said in Oliver Twist, "If the law supposes that . . . the law is a ass, a idiot."

I always believed that most married people, just like my parents did, should own everything in joint tenancy - till death do they part. When death did part them, the survivor automatically owned it all - no fuss, no probate, no lawyers. Joint tenancy was, after all, "the poor man's will."

A. Your beliefs about joint tenancy may have been based on an incomplete understanding of just what joint tenancy really is.

Nonetheless, for many people, joint tenancy has worked ...

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