Co-ownership essay        

        In order to advise these parties effectively we need to look at the situation they have found themselves in. The first thing to consider when assessing this question is the nature of the ownership of the cottage as it stands when the purchasers bought the property. We are told that the cottage was purchased in the name of both Julian and Dick and they are the legal owners of the property as it is they who are named on the legal documents they. Co- ownership is described as being the forms ownership in which two or more persons are simultaneously entitled in possession to an interest or interests in the same property. There are four types of co-ownership but the one which we are concerned with here is joint tenancy. Joint tenancy is said to be the form of co-ownership in which each ‘joint tenant’ is said to be wholly entitled to the whole of the interest or estate. It is an essential feature of joint tenancy that the ‘four unities’ must be present before a joint tenancy can be said to exist. The four unities comprise of possession (each tenant is as much entitled to possession as another), interest, (each joint tenant is wholly entitled to the whole), title (each tenant must derive his title from the same document) and time (each tenant vests in the interest at the same time).

         As established by the Law of Property Act 1925 s1(6) the only type of co-ownership that exists at law (the others exist in equity)  is a joint tenancy and in accordance with this Julian and Dick are therefore more properly termed the legal joint tenants of the property. In this particular question we are told that all the cousins all contributed equally to the purchase price of the house and this deems that they all have an interest in the property, even though their names are not on the legal title. The only way this interest can be recognised is in equity through a trust. We are told here that during the conveyance, a trust of land was set up which expressly stated that Julian and Dick would hold the property on trust for themselves and the other three cousins as joint tenants. This therefore means that no one joint tenant holds any distinct share in the co owned estate, but is, with the other joint tenants, invested in the total interest in the land, one collective entity.

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        This is the situation as it stands at the date of purchase, all the joint tenants allowing their family member Great Aunt Edna to live in the house until she dies. The first problem we must look at which changes this situation is the sale of Georgina’s equitable interest to Dick. Georgina wants to sell the land to another joint tenant, but for her to extract this value of her interest in the land she has to effectively sever her interest in the land as a joint tenant. This process is called severance and can occur in many different ...

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