I'm curious about how joint assets work for bequeathments. I know that
the 'default' is that the assets go to the other joint party. But: what happens if one of the person's will specifies that, say, *ALL* of the joint assets should go someplace [and that'd leave the other joint party
penniless]. What if the person bequeaths only _some_ of the joint assets? Would that be OK?

If the joint parties actually agree about their [different!] opinions as to
how the estate should be bequeathed, how does that work when one dies? Does
the surviving party just inherit it all anyway and so the wishes of the decedent party are ignored?

/Bernie\
--
Bernie Cosell Fantasy Farm Fibers
bernie@fantasyfarm.com Pearisburg, VA
--> Too many people, too few sheep <--

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It appears that Bernie Cosell <bernie@fantasyfarm.com> said:

I'm curious about how joint assets work for bequeathments. I know that
the 'default' is that the assets go to the other joint party.

It's not the default, it depends how the assets are held. If they're
joint tenants with right of survivorship or tenants by the entirety,
title automatically goes to the surviving owner. If they're tenants in
common, each party owns half (or whatever fractions the title says)
and can bequeath it separately. In the nine community property states
the rules are different and any assets aquired during the marriage are
in effect tenants by the entirety unless you do stuff I don't understand involving prenups to make it otherwise.

But: what
happens if one of the person's will specifies that, say, *ALL* of the joint >assets should go someplace [and that'd leave the other joint party >penniless].

It depends where you die. Most states have laws giving a surviving
spouse an "elective share" in a deceased spouse's estate of between
1/3 and 1/2 of the estate, often depending on the length of the
marriage and whether there are dependent children.

In Virginia it's a sliding scale which reaches 100% after 15 years of
marriage, so I hope you and your spouse are on good terms.

Legal trivia: the wife's share of the dead husband's estate used to be
called dower, husband's share of dead wife's estate was curtesy.

--
Regards,
John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

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On 6/3/2022 6:39 AM, Bernie Cosell wrote:

I'm curious about how joint assets work for bequeathments. I know that
the 'default' is that the assets go to the other joint party. But: what happens if one of the person's will specifies that, say, *ALL* of the joint assets should go someplace [and that'd leave the other joint party penniless]. What if the person bequeaths only _some_ of the joint assets? Would that be OK?

If the joint parties actually agree about their [different!] opinions as to how the estate should be bequeathed, how does that work when one dies? Does the surviving party just inherit it all anyway and so the wishes of the decedent party are ignored?

The general rule for Joint Tenancy is that the surviving owner(s)
inherit the deceased owner's share jointly (in equally shares). The last surviving owner ends up with the whole property and can leave it to his heirs/devisees. The deceased owner's share, in effect, evaporates.

So the deceased person's will would be ignored.

In Joint Tenancy, all the shares are equal.

-----

One alternative is Tenancy In Common. With this form of ownership, each
owner has a separate and distinct share, which he can leave to his heirs/devisees. The other owners do not have any rights to that share.
Tenants in Common do not have right of survivorship.

In a Tenancy in Common, the shares do not have to be equal.

For more details, see the Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concurrent_estate




--
I do so have a memory. It's backed up on DVD... somewhere...

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Barry Gold <bgold@labcats.org> wrote:

In Joint Tenancy, all the shares are equal.

That is true in most cases, but not for estate tax purposes when one of
the joint tenants dies. In that case the deceased's interest is
determined by his or her proportionate contribution to the purchase.

--
Stu
http://DownToEarthLawyer.com

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"John Levine" <johnl@taugh.com> wrote:

In the nine community property states
the rules are different and any assets aquired during the marriage
are in effect tenants by the entirety unless you do stuff I don't
understand involving prenups to make it otherwise.

The difference between community property and tenancy by the entirety
is that title under community property can be changed by the agreement
of the parties, but can't under tenahcy by the entirety.

Along those same lines (at least in California) ownership is only
presumed to be community property. When there is a writing (i.e.
marital property agreement or deed signed by both spouses) the type of ownership can be changed.

--
Stu
http://DownToEarthLawyer.com

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"Stuart O. Bronstein" <spamtrap@lexregia.com> writes:

"John Levine" <johnl@taugh.com> wrote:

In the nine community property states
the rules are different and any assets aquired during the marriage
are in effect tenants by the entirety unless you do stuff I don't
understand involving prenups to make it otherwise.

The difference between community property and tenancy by the entirety
is that title under community property can be changed by the agreement
of the parties, but can't under tenahcy by the entirety.

Sure it can. The joint tenants deed the property to one of htem.

--
dhs spencer@panix.com

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In misc.legal.moderated, on Sat, 4 Jun 2022 10:09:19 -0700 (PDT),
"Stuart O. Bronstein" <spamtrap@lexregia.com> wrote:

"John Levine" <johnl@taugh.com> wrote:

In the nine community property states
the rules are different and any assets aquired during the marriage
are in effect tenants by the entirety unless you do stuff I don't
understand involving prenups to make it otherwise.

The difference between community property and tenancy by the entirety
is that title under community property can be changed by the agreement
of the parties, but can't under tenahcy by the entirety.

Along those same lines (at least in California) ownership is only
presumed to be community property. When there is a writing (i.e.
marital property agreement or deed signed by both spouses) the type of >ownership can be changed.

Once I learned that Communtiy Property only applies to assets gathered
dring the time of the marriage, combined with what you've written here.
it seems the difference between Community Property states and the others
is not that big, and even most differences can be eliminated if people
plan and the spouse agrees and signs.

For the first 40 years of my life, all I knew about Community Prorperty
came from sarcastic references by standup comedians on TV. It sounded
terrible for the husband! But since then it doesn't sound so bad for
either party.

--
I think you can tell, but just to be sure:
I am not a lawyer.

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