In past links, I have discussed “Tenancy by the Entirety,” where a deed to a Husband and Wife is presumed to convey the property to each as equal and inseparable joint tenants. That means, one may not convey without the other, and creditors may not partition their interests. Indeed, when one tenant by the entirety dies, the other inherits the real property regardless of what any Last Will and Testament states. Despite this seemingly well established rule, it’s still litigated.
The Second Department rendered an interesting decision in Ciaccio v. Wright-Ciaccio, 2022 NY Slip Op 07215, decided December 21, 2023. The decedent’s children claimed an interest to their father’s property where the father had, prior to his death, executed and recorded a deed adding his current wife (the children’s stepmother). Although not critical, the deed mentioned that the stepmother was designated as “His Wife.”
In affirming the lower Court’s ruling, the court reaffirmed that the designation in the Deed as “His Wife” created a documented Tenancy by the Entirety and therefore, the children’s allegations that (1) the father “intended” only to create a Tenancy in Common had no merit and (2) that the stepmother destroyed a Will evidencing the father’s intention to give the children an interest in the property had no relevance given that the father’s interest in the property transferred to his wife immediately upon the his death by operation of law.
Specifically, a husband/father conveyed the property to himself and “his wife.” After the husband died intestate in 2020, his adult children, his wife’s stepchildren, sought to obtain a judgment that they shared ownership equally with their stepmother. They alleged that their father had intended them and the Defendant to hold title to the property equally on his death, and that he may have prepared a Will to that effect. The Supreme Court, Nassau County, dismissed the complaint for the failure to state a cause of action. The Appellate Division, Second Department, affirmed the lower court’s ruling. According to the Appellate Division,
“…upon the decedent’s death, ownership of the entirety of the subject property automatically passed to [the surviving spouse] by operation of law, irrespective of whether the decedent had desired for the plaintiffs to have an ownership interest or had prepared a will to that effect [citations omitted].”
Bottom Line-– before commencing litigation like this, it behooves stepchildren to understand the facts, and how those facts are impacted by the law. It’s hard to believe that had they understood the well-settled law, that they would have commenced litigation.