Assent or transfer

I have read that an assent can only be used to transfer the whole of a property to a beneficiary. Could you please clarify - if the property is held in joint names, and the deceased share is being transferred to the joint owner, is this considered a 50% share and therefore must be done by TR1? Many thanks

Jessica - the legal ownership/title is always transferred as a whole. An Assent (AS1) is used by an executor to transfer the whole of the title to a beneficiary. Any other transfer would be in form TR1.

If the title is in joint names, and one of them dies, probate is not required as the legal ownership does not form part of the deceased's estate. The legal ownership passes to the surviving joint owner to deal with. In your scenario there is no transfer needed and an application to update the register using form DJP and certified copy of the death certificate or probate should be submitted

And if the register refers to a form A/joint ownership restriction, and the surviving joint owner now has 100% of the beneficial ownership, an application in form RX3 and ST5 can be submitted at the same time to cancel the restriction. See PG 6 for guidance https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/devolution-on-the-death-of-a-registered-proprietor

Thanks Adam. If the owners were tenants in common (form A restriction on the register) how does this affect things?

Sorry, Adam - I must have been typing my last question at the same time as you were answering it!

No apology ever needed - you can clearly type far quicker than I can

The subject and Qs you pose are very common ones and the subject can always be quite tricky to explain as it's not always solely about the property/registered title when an owner dies. The key is understanding the difference between the legal and beneficial ownerships and how we deal with the former directly but the latter has wider considerations

The simplest way I have of describing it is that the legal ownership is the land and building inc bricks and mortar. That can't be split into % shares as you can't have half a kitchen or half a bathroom or half the bricks and mortar. We register the legal ownership hence my reference to it always being transferred as a whole. And where you have joint owners, and one dies, the whole legal ownership passes to the survivor to deal with and probate is not needed where the property is concerned.

The beneficial ownership relates to the value of the land and building inc bricks and mortar. That value is £s and pence and of course that can be split. A £200K house can be split £100K each for example. But the value is often only realised when you convert the legal ownership into £s and pence often by selling The form A restriction is often applied for to protect that split but not always and the register is not definitive as to whether they are TIC or not. But if there is a form A restriction it often has to be dealt with as well and if it's to be cancelled then PG 6 explains how to do that

Thanks as ever for the comprehensive explanation!