Laws, Regulations & Annotations

C

220.0000 CHANGE IN OWNERSHIP

Annotation 220.0310

220.0310 Joint Tenancy. A trust can be a joint tenant under Civil Code section 683(a), which specifies that a joint tenancy may be created by grant or devise to trustees as joint tenants. For property tax purposes, a joint tenant's interest can be transferred into a revocable trust without severing the joint tenancy if the other joint tenant is the present beneficiary. Under these circumstances, the joint tenants retain the present beneficial interest, the right of survivorship remains intact, and the trustee receives only bare legal title. The trustee never holds the present beneficial interest in the trust property, even though he or she has legal title and the power to sell. C 5/19/2005.

Note: The above statement that a transfer to a trust may preserve a pre-existing joint tenancy is only effective if the transfer occurred between November 13, 2003 and September 30, 2013. Effective October 1, 2013, the provision that allowed a trust to maintain the joint tenancy was removed from Property Tax Rule 462.040.