Buy a home with a partner, a sibling or a friend and the deed has to say how you own it together. Tenancy in common is the form built for owners who are not interchangeable: different money in, separate shares on paper, and each share free to go its own way when an owner sells, gives it away, or dies. This page is how the shares work, why there is no survivorship, and the two limits that matter in practice — selling a share alone, and what happens when the owners stop agreeing.
A tenancy in common starts with a number for each owner: the percentage the deed records. The split can track the money — one owner who funded 70% of the purchase holds 70% — or it can be an even split between owners who contributed differently on purpose; the deed, not the bank statements, is what counts. Percentages decide each owner's share of the proceeds at a sale and, by default in most arrangements, their share of the big costs, though a written agreement can divide expenses any way the owners choose. What a percentage never does is carve the house into pieces: a 30% owner does not own the garage and a spare room. Every owner holds an undivided interest with the right to use the whole home, and no owner can lock another out of any part of it.
The sharpest difference from joint tenancy is death. A tenant in common's share does not move to the other owners when they die — it is an asset of their estate, distributed under their will or, without one, by the state's intestacy rules, and it generally passes through probate like their other property. That is a feature for owners who want their share to reach their own children or chosen heirs rather than a co-owner, and it is a surprise for owners who assumed the survivor simply takes the house: unmarried partners who hold as tenants in common and never write wills can leave a partner co-owning a home with the deceased partner's family. The deed's wording decides which world you are in, and it is worth reading before anyone needs it to be true.
Each share is separately transferable: an owner can sell it, gift it, or leave it by will without asking the others, and can in principle mortgage it — though most lenders will not take a lone share as practical collateral and will instead require a loan all owners sign. The standing right to transfer is worth less than it sounds, because the buyer pool for a fraction of someone else's house is thin and prices it accordingly; in practice shares move by buyout, with the remaining owners purchasing the departing share at an agreed or appraised value. Owners who set that machinery in advance — a co-ownership agreement with a valuation method, a right of first refusal for the insiders, and an expense split — rarely need a court. Owners who skip it negotiate the same questions later, with positions hardened.
Tenancy in common has a built-in exit for deadlock: any owner can generally bring a partition action asking a court to end the co-ownership. For land that can be split fairly, a court may divide it physically; for a single house, which cannot, the usual outcome is a court-ordered sale with the proceeds divided by the recorded shares. Nobody sensible wants to pay lawyers to reach that result, which is exactly its function — the credible threat of partition is what brings a holdout owner to a negotiated buyout. The cheaper version of the same ending is agreed at purchase: put the exit terms in writing while the owners are still choosing each other.
Homeowner HQ keeps the homeowner's side of the record straight whichever form the deed takes: your own agent's monthly updates track your home's value and equity, so each co-owner can see what the whole home is worth — the number every share percentage is a percentage of. The guides in this series cover the ownership family side by side: joint tenancy and its survivorship, the life estate, and the transfer-on-death deed, so a co-owner can compare the form on their deed with the forms they might choose at the next purchase or refinance, when the vesting line is written again.
Homeowners are always free. Realtors pay $25/mo all-in and lenders pay $25/mo to join, at any book size, with no setup fee; messaging is included free for realtors, and lender messaging is $100/mo ($125/mo total for lenders). A lender-sponsored realtor joins for $0.
Tenancy in common (often shortened to TIC) is a form of co-ownership in which two or more people each own a separate, distinct share of the same home. The shares can be equal — two owners at 50% each — or unequal in any proportion the deed states, such as 70/30, and they need not match who uses which part of the home: every tenant in common holds an undivided interest, meaning a share of the whole property with the right to possess and use all of it, not a fenced-off room or floor. Of the traditional four unities of co-ownership, tenancy in common requires only one — unity of possession. The defining feature is what is missing: there is no right of survivorship. When a tenant in common dies, their share stays theirs — it becomes part of their estate and passes under their will, or by the state's intestacy rules if there is no will, through probate like their other property. In many states tenancy in common is the presumed form when a deed names two or more owners who are not married and does not state a survivorship form, which is why so many co-owners hold it without ever having chosen it by name.
The two forms differ on shares and on death. Shares: joint tenants must hold equal, undivided shares created at the same time by the same deed; tenants in common may hold unequal shares acquired at different times. Death: a joint tenancy carries the right of survivorship, so a deceased owner's share passes automatically to the surviving owners outside probate and regardless of any will; a tenancy in common has no survivorship, so the share passes through the owner's own estate. Control follows from that: a joint tenant who transfers their share during life generally severs the joint tenancy as to that share, converting it to a tenancy in common, while a tenant in common can sell, gift or will their share as a standing right. Tenancy in common is the usual choice for friends, unmarried partners, siblings who inherit together, and co-investors who contribute different amounts and want the paperwork to say so; joint tenancy is the usual choice for couples who want the survivor to take the home automatically.
Generally yes: a tenant in common can sell, gift, or mortgage their own share, or leave it in a will, without the other owners' consent — the share is their separate property. Two practical limits matter more than the legal right. First, the market: a partial share of a house is hard to sell to a stranger, because the buyer steps into co-ownership with people they did not choose, so shares usually move at a discount or are bought by the other owners. Second, any mortgage or written co-ownership agreement can restrict transfers, and a lender on the whole property will usually require every owner on the loan regardless of shares. A sale of the entire home is different — that takes every owner's signature on the deed. If co-owners deadlock, a tenant in common can generally ask a court for partition, which ends the co-ownership by dividing the property or, far more commonly for a house, ordering it sold and the proceeds split by shares. A written co-ownership agreement with buyout terms and a right of first refusal, made when everyone still gets along, is what keeps that from ever being necessary.