When a joint tenant dies, can the surviving joint tenant continue to have undivided interest in the property?
Saskatchewan, Canada
The following excerpt is from Thorsteinson v Olson, 2014 SKQB 237 (CanLII):
It has often been said that the most important incident of joint tenancy is the right of survivorship, that is, the right of the surviving joint tenant to have their undivided interest progressively increased on the death of the other joint tenant. As explained in the text Law of Real Property: Although a joint tenancy can be severed and turned into a tenancy in common, while a joint tenancy continues all joint tenants have a concurrent interest, no one having a share separate from the others. Hence, if one dies, no person can claim his share by descent because, between such person and the surviving joint tenants, there could not be unity of title or unity of time of vesting and no one can have the right to a separate interest in any part of the property... The interest of the one who dies is simply extinguished and accrues to the survivors who thus have an increased share of the rents and profits of the property and an increased share on a severance of the joint tenancy. [p. 793] (See also Simcoff v. Simcoff, 2009 MBCA 80, [2009] 9 W.W.R. 248, para. 62)
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