A concurrent estate or co-tenancy is a concept in property
law, particularly derived from the common law of real property,
which describes the various ways in which property can be
owned by more than one person at a given time. If more than
one person own the same property, they are referred to as
co-owners, co-tenants or joint tenants. Most common law jurisdictions
recognize tenancies in common and joint tenancies, and some
also recognize tenancies by the entirety. Many jurisdictions
refer to a joint tenancy as a joint tenancy with right of
survivorship, and a few U.S. States treat the phrase joint
tenancy as synonymous with a tenancy in common.
The type of ownership determines the rights of the parties
to sell their interest in the property to others, to will
the property to their devisees, or to sever their joint ownership
of the property. Just as each of these affords a different
set of rights and responsibilities to the co-owners of property,
each requires a different set of conditions in order to exist.