Incapacity Planning – Joint Tenancy

Estate Planning is the managing and passing of your assets through the preparation of documents and re-titling of assets.  The process of linking Asset Protection with Estate Planning is called integrated Estate Planning and they work together to form a comprehensive plan. Having one without the other is incomplete.  Every person should have an estate plan so that they can control who gets their assets at death. In addition, the estate plan covers an individual should he or she become incapacitated.

Joint tenancy occurs when two or more people own property together with rights of survivorship. This means that the surviving tenant inherits the interest of a deceased tenant. For instance, if there are three people who own property as joint tenants with rights of survivorship, they will each own 33.33% percent of that property. If one of the joint tenants dies, the remaining two joint tenants will then own 50% of the property. This can be useful if a person has not made a Will and becomes incapacitated because this type of ownership passes outside of probate.

However, the downside to this ownership is that if one joint tenant becomes incapacitated, it becomes more complicated to sell the joint property. Only an authorized agent or guardian of the incapacitated joint tenant may sign the paperwork for the sale.

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