Housing Issues for Families – Part 3

The House

When people own a house, their proof of ownership is a deed, and very often in a marriage, the deed states that the house is owned by both husband and the wife together. In New York State, this ownership is called “tenants by the entirety” and it means that if something happens to one of the spouses the house ownership automatically passes to the surviving spouse.

Sometimes, if parties divorce and still want to retain the house jointly in the future, they would switch their ownership from being “tenants by the entirety” to becoming “tenants in common.” A tenancy in common is a basic type of ownership by partners, where if one of the partners passes away, his or her interest gets transferred to his/her individual heirs rather than to the remaining owner. If owners are not married to each other but want the ownership of the house to pass to surviving owners, they would ordinarily state on the deed that their ownership is as “joint tenants with right of survivorship.”

In a separation or divorce, spouses have to explore various options. Click here to read more.