In real estate law, title is another word for ownership. A person that holds title to the property is the owner of that property. More than one person can hold title to the property, below are the ways title can be held jointly.
Join Tenants
When two or more people hold title to the property at joint tenants, they all own an equal interest in the property and an undivided interest in the entire property. In order for this to happen all owners must receive their interest in the same deed at the same time. In order to add someone after the fact you will have to redo the deed.
If one person transfers his interest to someone else, then he severs the joint tenancy.
One of the key characteristics of joint tenancy is the right to survivorship. This means that if one joint tenant dies, his or her interest in property will vest in the surviving joint tenants. This means that the survivors will receive the deceased interest.
Tenants in Common
When two or more people hold title as tenants in common, they don’t have to have equal shares of the property and there is no right of survivorship. Each tenant in common only owns that share that was agreed on and can transfer it at will.
The Partition Act
This act deals with situations when two or more people want to sell the property and one or more of the owners does not. While it is legally possible to sell only your share of the property you might not find a lot of interested buyers in half a house or quarter of it.
In situations like that an owner can ask the court to force the sale of the entire property under the Partition Act.