In Hong Kong, the ways of property ownership include sole ownership and joint ownership.
- Sole Ownership
Sole ownership means a property owned by a single person only and that person is the sole owner of the property.
- Joint Ownership
The two most common types of joint ownership are “joint tenancy” and “tenancy-in-common”.
2.1 Joint tenancy
For a joint tenancy, all the joint tenants are treated as one s
ole owner. That means the interests or shares of ownership of the joint tenants are equal. When one of the joint tenants passes away, his/her interest will pass automatically to the surviving joint tenant who will own the whole property.
2.2 Tenancy-in-common
For tenancy-in-common, the interests of all the tenants-in-common are proportional to their respective contributions to the purchase price of the property. For instance, in a tenancy-in-common with 2 owners, the owner who contributed 75% of the purchase price would hold 3/4 share of ownership. The other owner, who contributed 25% of the purchase price, would hold 1/4 share of ownership. When one of the tenants-in-common passes away, his/her interest will become part of his/her estate (i.e. property left after a person’s death), and will be passed on according to the terms of his/her Will or the law of intestacy if there is no Will.
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