joint tenant

In Commonwealth Caribbean jurisdictions, apart from Belize, the pre-1926 co-ownership rules apply. Under these rules, both joint tenancies and tenancies in common can exist at law in equity as legal estates and equitable interests respectively. The possibility of creating tenancies in common at law is extremely inconvenient for conveyancers, as the effect of the fragmentation of the legal estate between numerous tenants in common is that each individual title must be investigated before a good title can be transferred to a purchaser of the land. To avoid this problem, the 1925 legislation in England and Wales provided that tenancies in common of the legal estate could no longer exist. The legal title henceforth had to be held by trustees as joint tenants on trust for sale for the benefit of the beneficiaries, who may be either joint tentants or tenants in common of the beneficial (equitable) interest.