Ways to Take Title

Hi, I’m Sophia Sanchez, Tampa Real Estate Broker and I’m with Danielle Walter from Compass Land and Title having a conversation about how to take title and what that means.

People don’t really know what taking title means and sometimes after you call and ask them, they will then call us back and say, oh my God, what does this mean? So I thought we could do a little video and explain taking title, the different options of how to take title, and which options will protect you in the future.

The most common way to take title is Sole Ownership. For example, John Smith as himself.

There is also a way to take title when you are in a partnership, but you’re not necessarily married, and you don’t want the other person to have the interest in your property which is known as Tenants in Common. This would be John Smith and James Davis in common, which means if something happens to one of the title holders, the interest in the property, instead of passing to the other person on title, would then pass to one of their heirs.

Joint Tenants with full rights of survivorship is another way to take title. Now, that again is for people who are not married, and if something should happen to one of them, then the property would pass to the other person since the survivorship vesting is there.

And then of course, a very common way of taking title is as a husband and wife or married couple. Now, you don’t have to have the rights of survivorship vesting language on there, but title will automatically pass to your spouse.

Those are the most common ways to take title and a lot of people don’t know that they have those options. There are so many different ways and it really makes people take pause to think: what does this mean? The way I am purchasing this property, how is it going to unfold into my estate? What’s going to happen to me if I get married? What if I am going to get divorced and the person that I’m with doesn’t know this? There’s a lot of things on the back end.

Danielle is a great resource for insight and knowledge when it comes to taking title so you can plan for the future. You can find her contact information on her company’s website at https://compasslandandtitle.com/compass_team/

If you have any questions, please send me an email and we’ll get in touch as quickly as we can.