Michigan Salesperson PSI Practice Exam

Survivorship means that when one owner dies, the deceased owner’s interest automatically passes to the remaining owners, not to the deceased’s heirs. This automatic transfer is a defining feature of joint tenancy, which rests on four unities—time, title, interest, and possession—that keep the owners tied together and ensure the surviving co-owners become the sole owners of the whole property.

Tenancy by the entirety also has survivorship, but it’s a special form geared to married couples with its own protections and rules about transfers. Tenancy in severalty is sole ownership and has no survivorship—there’s no automatic transfer to others. A life estate ends when the life tenant dies, rather than transferring to other co-owners.

So, among these forms, joint tenancy best exemplifies the right of survivorship.