Asked 11 months ago - San Diego, CA
FlagI bought a house and paid for it with my own money. I then added my son as a joint tenant. Unfortunately, we do not get along now. Is there any way I can I remove him from joint tenancy without his consent? Thank you.
You cannot remove him from title, but you can record a quitclaim from yourself as joint tenant to yourself as tenant-in-common, and by so doing you will defeat the joint tenancy and convert it to a tenancy-in-common. This is significant. By operation of law, the surviving joint tenant becomes the sole owner of the property when the other joint tenant dies. Thus each joint tenant is said to have a "right of survivorship." If you make the above quitclaim, you will defeat the necessary "unities" that must be in place in order to establish a joint tenancy, so that if you pass away before your son, your interest in the property will belong to your estate, not to your son, and you can dispose of your estate by a will, trust or other testamentary arrangement. You might also have cause to bring an action to quiet title against your son along with a claim for reformation of title, but I would have to know much more about your case before determining whether these remedies might be available to you.
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