How Surviving Joint Owners Transfer Property After a Death

When one owner of a jointly held property dies, and that property was set up as joint tenancy, tenancy by the entirety, or community property with survivorship rights, ownership shifts to the surviving owner automatically. This applies to real estate, bank accounts, vehicles, and investment accounts alike. No probate court needs to get involved to make the transfer happen. Yet even though the survivor already owns the asset in the law's eyes, nothing changes in official records until the survivor takes steps to "clear title." In most cases, clearing title just means filling out a short form and turning it in to the right office or company.

If you're serving as executor under a will, survivorship property generally sits outside your authority — the will has no say over it, and it skips probate entirely. Still, plenty of executors are also surviving joint owners themselves. So you may find yourself needing to clear title on this kind of property, either for your own sake or to help another family member do it.

This overview draws on legal reporting by attorney Jeff Burtka.

• Joint tenancy, community property, and tenancy by the entirety
• Clearing title by asset type
• If title was never cleared after the first owner's death

Joint tenancy, community property, and tenancy by the entirety

There are three main forms of survivorship ownership: joint tenancy, community property, and tenancy by the entirety.

Joint tenancy with right of survivorship

Property held as joint tenants — often labeled "JTWROS" — passes automatically to the remaining owner or owners when one joint tenant dies, with no probate required.

Tenancy by the entirety

Tenancy by the entirety works much like joint tenancy, but only married couples can use it, and not every state recognizes it. Where a state doesn't offer tenancy by the entirety, spouses need to make sure they hold property as joint tenants with right of survivorship instead, if they want full ownership to pass to each other.

Paper savings bonds are no longer issued for Series EE or Series I bonds. These can only be reissued electronically, through a Treasury Direct account.

Community property with right of survivorship

Community property is another married-couples-only form of ownership, and it's recognized in only a handful of states. As a rule, property spouses acquire during the marriage automatically becomes community property unless they've agreed otherwise, and both spouses hold an ownership stake. When community property carries a right of survivorship, it passes to the surviving spouse the moment the other spouse dies.

Clearing title by asset type

Which documents you need, and where you send them, depends on the kind of asset, not which survivorship arrangement applies. The table below gives you the short version; the sections after it go into more detail for each asset type.

Real estate

Rules for real estate come from the state where the property sits. The exact filing process for transferring jointly held real estate into a survivor's name varies by location, though the basic idea holds everywhere: you record a document in the local land records showing that one co-owner has died and that the survivor now holds the property alone.

Documents you'll need. Some states let the surviving owner simply file a certified copy of the death certificate. Others also require the survivor to sign a statement laying out the facts and confirming sole ownership — this might need a notary's seal, making it an affidavit, or just a signature made "under penalty of perjury," known as a declaration. Filing this kind of statement rarely hurts, even in places where it isn't strictly required.

Where to file. Take whatever paperwork you need, likely a death certificate and an affidavit of survivorship, to the county land records office covering that property. Depending on the state, this office might be called the County Recorder or the Registrar of Deeds. Filing fees differ by state and sometimes by county, ranging from around $15 to more than $100. Check with your local office for the current cost.

Bank accounts

When someone dies owning a bank account jointly, whether as joint tenants, tenants by the entirety, or survivorship community property, the surviving owner can keep using the account's funds right away. That survivor, often a spouse or adult child, owns all the money in the account automatically, without probate. Moving the account fully into the survivor's name is usually straightforward: bring a certified death certificate to the bank along with the checkbook or passbook, and the bank will update its records.

Securities

How you retitle stocks or bonds depends on how they were held: through a brokerage account, or as physical certificates.

Brokerage accounts, mutual funds, or money market funds

If the joint account was held at a brokerage or through a mutual fund company, contact that company directly. The surviving owner fills out its transfer form and sends it in with a certified death certificate, and the firm retitles the account in the survivor's name alone.

The survivor's signature on those forms sometimes needs a "signature guarantee" to confirm it's authentic. Banks and brokers can often provide this, though not all of them are authorized to, so check first before assuming yours can.

Changing certificates on securities

If actual paper stock or bond certificates exist, they'll need to be reissued in the survivor's name. Look up the transfer agent listed on the back of the certificate and follow its instructions for the required forms. If the stock isn't publicly traded, there's no transfer agent, so you'll work directly with the company instead.

Vehicles

Cars, motorcycles, RVs, and small boats held jointly under any of the three survivorship arrangements are usually simple to retitle in the survivor's name. Your state's motor vehicles agency website is a good source for state-specific instructions and forms.

Savings bonds

When two people co-own a U.S. savings bond, the survivor becomes sole owner automatically at the other owner's death. From there, the survivor can redeem the bond, have it reissued in their name, or leave it as is. Reissuing it has one clear benefit: the survivor can then name a beneficiary, so the bond passes to that person automatically at the survivor's death, without probate.

To reissue a bond in the survivor's name, use the Treasury Department's Request to Reissue United States Savings Bonds form, available through banks or at www.treasurydirect.gov. The survivor needs to sign this form in front of a bank employee who serves as an authorized certifying officer.

As of 2025, paper bonds are no longer issued for Series EE or Series I savings bonds. These bonds can only be reissued in electronic form through a Treasury Direct account.

If title was never cleared after the first owner's death

Sometimes, when you're settling the estate of a second joint owner, you discover that no one ever cleared title after the first owner died. Official records might still list two owners, both now deceased. If that's the situation, there's an extra step: before transferring the property to the new heir, you need to go back and remove the first deceased owner's name from the records, following whatever process applies to that type of asset. Once that's done, you can move forward with transferring the property to its new owner.

Rules and filing procedures described here can vary by state, so check with your local land records office, bank, or motor vehicles agency for details specific to your situation.