## Facts

- Jack C. Riddle and Frances Pringle Riddle (husband and wife) bought real property and took title as joint tenants.
- Several months before her death, Frances sought estate-planning advice and learned that the joint tenancy would transfer the property to Jack by survivorship.
- Frances wanted to end survivorship so she could dispose of her share by will.
- On December 8, 1975, Frances executed a grant deed conveying to herself an undivided one-half interest and expressly stating its purpose was to terminate the joint tenancy between Frances and Jack.
- On the same date, Frances executed a will disposing of her interest in the property.
- Frances died 20 days later.
- After her death, Jack claimed sole ownership by survivorship; the executrix of Frances’s estate claimed the self-deed severed the joint tenancy, leaving Frances’s one-half as a tenancy in common interest passing under her will.

## Issues

1. Whether a joint tenant may unilaterally sever a joint tenancy by conveying her interest to herself as a tenant in common, without an intermediary “straw man” and without the other joint tenant’s knowledge or consent.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeal reversed the judgment quieting title in Jack as surviving joint tenant.
- The court held that a joint tenant may unilaterally sever a joint tenancy by executing a deed conveying her joint tenancy interest to herself as a tenant in common.
- The court concluded that Frances’s self-conveyance effectively destroyed the joint tenancy and the right of survivorship.
- Frances’s one-half interest became a tenancy in common share that could pass under her will.

## Legal Principles

- Each joint tenant has the power to convey his or her separate interest without the knowledge or consent of the other joint tenant; such a conveyance terminates the joint tenancy.
- Severance ends the right of survivorship, which is an expectancy that exists only while the joint tenancy remains unsevered.
- A deed from a joint tenant to herself, if otherwise valid and clearly intended to terminate the joint tenancy, is sufficient to sever without using an intermediary conveyance.
- Formal conveyancing requirements should not be used to defeat a clearly expressed intent to sever where the joint tenant has the substantive right to do so.

## Conclusion

The court held that a joint tenant may unilaterally sever a joint tenancy through a valid self-deed converting her interest into a tenancy in common, eliminating survivorship and allowing her share to pass by will rather than to the surviving joint tenant.


Riddle v. Harmon, 102 Cal. App. 3d 524 (Cal. Ct. App. 1980)