COMMON, TENANCY IN. The most usual form of joint or common ownership of lands or goods. It may be constituted of two or any greater number of persons, who may have equal or unequal shares, and whose titles and interests are distinct although undivided from those of their colleagues. Accordingly, while the tenant in common cannot claim any specific portion of the property as his own, he may, nevertheless, deal freely with his undivided share, alienating or devising it at his pleasure, or he may, by appropriate legal action, compel the partition of the property; whereupon, if it be divisible in fact, his share will be set off to him, as a sepa rate parcel, in severalty. If it be not physically severable—as a mansion or a horse—the courts will direct its sale and the distribution of the proceeds among the several owners in the pro portion of their respective interests. If the estate of a tenant in common be of an inheritable nature—as an estate in fee simple—it will, upon his death. descend, like his other real property, to his heirs. In the event of a con veyance or descent of such an interest, the new holder simply takes the place of his grantor or ancestor, and becomes a tenant in common with the surviving co-tenants of the latter.
In its incidents, the tenancy in common is at the present time not distinguishable from the estate which arose at common law by the de scent of lands to two or more heirs who were entitled to share the estate. (See COPARCENADY.) Indeed, this is now in the United States the more usual method of creating a tenancy in common. It is, however, to be sharply distinguished from the other forms of common ownership, as joint tenancy, tenancy by entireties, and partnership, the two former of which are attended by the inci dent of survivorship, and the last of which is affected by the peculiar qualities of the partner ship relation.
At connuon law, upon a conveyance of lands to two or more persons without more being said, they took the property as joint tenants, and not as tenants in common. This presumption has generally been reversed by statute in modern times, and now such a grant will vest the prop erty in the grantees as tenants in common, unless the deed declares that they are to take as joint tenants. See OwNERsHIP; PROPERTY; and the authorities there referred to.