The Vermont Statutes Online
The Statutes below include the actions of the 2025 session of the General Assembly.
NOTE: The Vermont Statutes Online is an unofficial copy of the Vermont Statutes Annotated that is provided as a convenience.
(Cite as: 27 V.S.A. § 2)
-
§ 2. Estate in common preferred to joint tenancy; joint tenancy with unequal shares
(a) Conveyances and devises of lands, whether for years, for life or in fee, made to two
or more persons, shall be construed to create estates in common and not in joint tenancy,
unless it is expressed therein that the grantees or devisees shall take the lands
jointly or as joint tenants or in joint tenancy or to them and the survivors of them.
This provision shall not apply to devises or conveyances made in trust or made to
spouses or to conveyances in which it manifestly appears from the tenor of the instrument
that it was intended to create an estate in joint tenancy.
(b)(1) An instrument may create a joint tenancy in which the interests of the joint tenants
are equal or unequal.
(2) Unless the instrument creating a joint tenancy contains language indicating a contrary
intent:
(A) It shall be presumed that the joint tenants’ interests are equal.
(B) Upon the death of a joint tenant, the deceased joint tenant’s interest shall be allocated
among the surviving joint tenants, as joint tenants, in proportion to their respective
joint interests at the time of the deceased joint tenant’s death. (Amended 2003, No. 150 (Adj. Sess.), § 1.)