Virginia Code 55.1-134: Survivorship between joint tenants abolished
A. When any joint tenant dies, before or after the vesting of the estate, whether the estate is real or personal, or whether partition could have been compelled or not, his part shall descend to his heirs, pass by devise, or go to his personal representative, subject to debts or distribution, as if he had been a tenant in common.
Terms Used In Virginia Code 55.1-134
- Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
- Devise: To gift property by will.
- Personal property: All property that is not real property.
- Personal representative: includes the executor of a will or the administrator of the estate of a decedent, the administrator of such estate with the will annexed, the administrator of such estate unadministered by a former representative, whether there is a will or not, any person who is under the order of a circuit court to take into his possession the estate of a decedent for administration, and every other curator of a decedent's estate, for or against whom suits may be brought for causes of action that accrued to or against the decedent. See Virginia Code 1-234
B. This section shall not apply to any estate that joint tenants have as fiduciaries or to any real or personal property transferred to persons in their own right when it manifestly appears from the tenor of the instrument transferring such property or memorializing the existence of a chose in action that it was intended the part of the one dying should then belong to the others. This section does not affect the mode of proceeding on any joint judgment or order in favor of or on any contract with two or more one of whom dies.
Code 1919, §§ 5159, 5160; Code 1950, §§ 55-20, 55-21; 1990, c. 831; 1999, c. 196; 2001, c. 718; 2019, c. 712.