In this case, a mother conveyed real property to her son and to herself as joint tenants. Later the mother sued for partition and then attempted to sever the joint tenancy from conveying her 50 percent interest to herself. The mother died before the partition proceedings had finished and she left her 50 percent interest to her daughter. If her deed to herself severed the joint tenancy, the daughter would win and own a 50 percent interest as a tenant in common with her brother. If the deed did not sever the joint tenancy and end the right of survivorship, the brother would own a 100% interest and the daughter would own nothing.
Affirming the rulings of the lower courts, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held in Grant v. Grant, 341 A.3d 685 (Pa. 2025), that you cannot sever a joint tenancy by conveying your fractional interest to yourself. The court explained that for a unilateral act by one of the joint tenants to sever and convert the tenancy into a tenancy at common, it must destroy one of the four unities. That can happen by conveying the interest to a third party or giving them a mortgage interest, but not by keeping the interest and just announcing an intent to sever. From the court’s standpoint the self-conveyance changed nothing; it just showed an intent to sever but did not actually change any of the four unities that underlie the joint tenancy. The court apparently wanted the formality of conveying the interest to another who then conveys it back. That is the traditional rule and the court was not convinced that the cost and trouble of doing that was unreasonable.