How Tenancies by the Entirety Can Help Your ClientsHow Tenancies by the Entirety Can Help Your Clients

The great comedian Richard Pryor is quoted as saying, “Marriage is really tough because you have to deal with feelings ... and lawyers.”¹  Which isn’t all that bad, because the law and the lawyers also bring certain advantages for married individuals that single individuals don’t have. With respect to property rights, in those jurisdictions that allow it, the most important property law benefit attributed to marriage is the ability to own property as tenants by the entirety (TBE). When a married couple owns property as TBE, such property is protected from the claims of each spouse’s creditors (but not from a joint creditor of both spouses). Property owned as TBE avoids probate on the death of the first spouse. Further, thanks to portabil...