## Facts

- Patty J. Cummings and Wally H. Anderson, while contemplating marriage, acquired the purchaser’s interest in a contract to buy a single-family home and took the assignment in both names as tenants in common.
- The assignment cost $2,500; the parties used separate funds and a loan for the initial payment, expecting future payments to be made with community funds.
- The real-estate contract required $150 monthly payments, a final payoff by August 1, 1975, and allowed forfeiture upon default.
- By August 1974, the parties had paid $2,828.92 toward the purchase price, with $16,350.16 remaining.
- Cummings moved out in August 1974 and thereafter made no further payments, did not seek possession, and did not request rent.
- Anderson stayed in the home, made all remaining contract payments, and paid taxes and insurance; he also funded certain improvements.
- A later dissolution decree did not dispose of the property, and Cummings brought a partition action claiming a one-half interest and rental value; Anderson claimed she had abandoned her interest.

## Issues

1. When a tenancy-in-common instrument is silent on respective shares, are ownership interests fixed as equal, or may they be adjusted to reflect unequal contributions absent evidence of a gift?
2. Did Cummings’ departure and nonpayment extinguish her ownership interest by abandonment, and is a cotenant in sole possession liable for rent absent an ouster?
3. In an accounting between cotenants, what offsets are allowed for carrying costs and improvements?

## Decision

- The court held that the presumption of equal shares for cotenants under a silent instrument is rebuttable; absent donative intent, equitable ownership is proportional to each cotenant’s contributions.
- The court rejected Anderson’s theory that Cummings legally abandoned her title; she retained an interest measured by her actual investment, subject to accounting.
- The court held Anderson owed no rent or rental-value accounting because there was no ouster.
- The court allowed offsets for necessary carrying charges such as taxes and insurance paid by Anderson.
- The court denied an offset for improvements where Anderson failed to prove the expenditures increased the property’s market value.
- The court reversed the appellate ruling to the extent it awarded Cummings a full one-half interest and remanded for allocation consistent with contribution-based ownership and proper offsets.

## Legal Principles

- When a tenancy-in-common instrument does not specify shares, equal ownership is presumed, but the presumption may be rebutted by proof of unequal contributions and absence of gift intent.
- In contribution-disparate cases with no contrary agreement, each cotenant’s equitable interest is proportional to that cotenant’s investment in acquisition.
- A cotenant’s cessation of payments and nonuse may relinquish claims to equal sharing, but does not, without more, divest legal title by abandonment.
- A cotenant in possession generally is not liable to other cotenants for rent or rental value absent an ouster.
- In partition/accounting, a cotenant paying necessary expenses that preserve the property (including taxes and insurance) is entitled to credit.
- Reimbursement for improvements requires proof that the improvements increased the property’s market value, not merely that costs were incurred.

## Conclusion

The court allocated tenancy-in-common ownership according to actual contributions rather than a fixed equal split, rejected forfeiture of title by abandonment, applied the no-rent-without-ouster rule, and limited offsets to proven carrying costs and value-enhancing improvements.


Cummings v. Anderson, 94 Wn.2d 135, 614 P.2d 1283 (Wash. 1980)