Severance of Tenancy

Last verified: 2 December 2025 (England & Wales)

Couples often assume that once their names are on the deeds, their Wills can decide who gets “their half” of the house.

In reality, the way your home is set up at HM Land Registry can quietly overrule a carefully drafted Will. If you own as joint tenants, your share normally bypasses your Will and passes automatically to the survivor.

Severance of tenancy is the simple step that lines up your Land Registry title with your Will or Will trust, so everything pulls in the same direction.

Quick-read summary

• Most couples buy as joint tenants, which means:
  • you both own 100% together;
  • if one of you dies, the survivor automatically owns 100%;
  • your share does not usually pass under your Will.
• If you want your share to follow your Will or Will trust (for example, a Property Life Interest Trust for your spouse and then your children), you usually need to change to tenants in common (50–50) first.
• Severance of tenancy is the process of changing from joint tenants to tenants in common and registering a standard restriction at HM Land Registry so that change is clear.
• Severance on its own does not provide care-fees or tax “magic”. Its job is to make sure your Wills and any Will trusts can actually work.

Without severance, your Will cannot reliably leave “your half” of a jointly owned home to anyone other than the surviving co-owner.

Joint tenants vs tenants in common (50–50)

Most co-owners in England and Wales will hold their home in one of three ways:

• Sole owner (100%) – one person owns the legal and beneficial interest. Their Will (or intestacy) controls who inherits.
• Joint tenants (100% / 100%) – each owner has an equal, undivided interest in the whole property. If one dies, the other automatically becomes the sole owner. You cannot leave your share to someone else in your Will.
• Tenants in common (50–50, or other split) – each owner has their own distinct share, which can be equal or unequal (50–50, 70–30, etc.). Each person’s share can follow their Will, and trusts can be used to protect those shares.

In most family-home planning, when we talk about tenants in common (50–50), we mean that each spouse or partner owns half, and their Will decides what happens to that half if they die first.

Analogy: a £2 coin vs two £1 coins

When I’m explaining severance in person, I often use a coin example.

Imagine your home is worth £2 and you own it together as joint tenants. It’s like you both owning the same £2 coin. If one of you dies, the survivor simply keeps the £2 coin. The whole value ends up following the Will of the second person to die, not the first.

Severance turns that £2 coin into two separate £1 coins. The house is still worth £2 and you are both still living in it, but now each of you owns your own £1 coin.

While you are both alive, nothing feels different. When the first of you dies, you are effectively “lending” your £1 coin to your partner for the rest of their life (often through a Will trust) so they can carry on living in the home. When the second person dies, each £1 coin then follows each person’s own Will. Your £1 coin goes where you chose; their £1 coin goes where they chose.

If you had stayed with the original £2 coin (joint tenants), everything would still go wherever the second person’s Will says, no matter what the first person’s Will tried to do.

When does severance actually matter?

Severance is worth looking at when:

You want a Will trust over your share of the home

For example, a Property Life Interest Trust (PLIT) in your Will, so your spouse can live in the home for life but, ultimately, your share is protected for your chosen beneficiaries.

If the title is left as joint tenants, your share will normally pass automatically to your co-owner and never reach the trust at all.

You want different beneficiaries from your co-owner

This is common with second marriages or blended families, or where you want at least part of your share to pass to someone else (for example, adult children from an earlier relationship, a vulnerable relative, or a charity).

You are separating or divorcing

Severance stops the “survivor automatically gets everything” outcome and fixes each person’s share while wider financial arrangements are being agreed.

Other

There are other, more technical uses for severance (for example, in combination with declarations of trust or more complex tax planning), but those are best handled on a case-by-case basis. For most families, the key reason is simply to let their Wills and any Will trusts actually do their job.

Severance isn’t about taking the home away from your partner; it’s about making sure your Will or trust does what you think it does.

Cases

Case 1 – “We want to protect each other and the children”

Alex and Priya own their home as joint tenants. Their new Wills include a Property Life Interest Trust so that whoever dies first gives their share into a trust: the survivor can live in the home for life and, in the longer term, any remaining value passes to their children.

To let the trust work, they sever the joint tenancy so the home is held as tenants in common (50–50) and a joint-ownership restriction is added to the title. When Alex later dies, their half-share passes into the trust in line with the Will instead of simply disappearing into joint ownership.

Case 2 – Second marriage, children from previous relationships

Brian and Sam both have children from earlier relationships. They want to look after each other but also ensure something is kept ring-fenced for their own children.

They sever the tenancy and update their Wills so that each half-share goes into a Will trust for the survivor’s life, with whatever is left later passing to their own children. The survivor is secure in the home, but no one side of the family can be unintentionally written out.

Case 3 – Protecting against “sideways disinheritance”

Jo and Kim are married and have two children together. If they stay as joint tenants and Jo dies first, Kim automatically owns 100% of the home. If Kim later remarries and leaves everything to the new spouse, Jo and Kim’s children could be left with little or nothing of the family home.

By severing the tenancy and using Will trusts, Jo’s half-share can be protected for the children, even though Kim can continue living in the home for life.

Case 4 – Separation and protecting your share

Emma and Lee separate but still own the house together. Emma wants her share to go to the children, not automatically to Lee.

She serves a notice of severance and the title is updated with the standard joint-ownership restriction, so her share now follows her own Will while wider financial matters are being sorted. If she dies before everything is finalised, the children are still protected.

Case 5 – With severance vs without

Tom dies still holding the home as a joint tenant with his wife. Despite a carefully drafted Will leaving “my half of the house in trust for my wife then our children”, his share never reaches the trust: the surviving joint tenant simply becomes sole owner.

By contrast, if Tom had severed the tenancy while alive, his 50% would have been available to go into the Will trust exactly as intended.

What Fern Wills & LPAs actually do for you

This is deliberately not a DIY guide. In practice, when we recommend severance of tenancy, we normally deal with everything as part of a joined-up package.

A typical process looks like this:

Title check

We obtain or review a copy of your title register and confirm how your home is currently held (sole owner, joint tenants or tenants in common).

Planning the structure

We agree the Will structure with you – for example, whether a Property Life Interest Trust or other trust is needed, and who you want to benefit in the longer term.

Severance decision

If severance is needed, we explain why in plain English and confirm the shares (for a typical home trust this is often 50–50).

Depending on your situation, severance can be done either by agreement between all owners or by one owner serving a unilateral notice of severance (for example where a relationship has broken down). We will advise you which route is appropriate in your circumstances so you do not have to worry about the technicalities.

Documents and Land Registry paperwork

We prepare the severance documentation and the Land Registry application to add the standard joint-ownership restriction to your title. You don’t have to wrestle with forms or wording.

Bringing it all together

We then complete your Wills, any Will trusts and, where agreed, a Letter of Wishes so that your paperwork, your home ownership and your intentions all match.

You get a clear explanation of what has been done and why, without needing to become an expert in Land Registry forms.

Technical note: How can I tell if my tenancy is severed?

You do not need to remember any of this – we can check it for you – but for those who like to see “under the bonnet”, this is the key marker.

On a standard, registered title, two things tend to matter most:

The owners’ names

If you and your partner are simply listed as proprietors with nothing more said, and there is no joint-ownership restriction, the Land Registry will usually be treating you as beneficial joint tenants.

Joint-ownership restriction (often called “Form A”)

When a beneficial joint tenancy has been severed, the register normally includes a standard restriction along the lines of:

“No disposition by a sole proprietor of the registered estate (except a trust corporation) under which capital money arises is to be registered unless authorised by an order of the court.”

This does not stop you selling or remortgaging, but it alerts anyone dealing with the property that it is held on a trust of land and that one person on their own cannot simply take the money.

Other types of restriction (for example, those requiring consent from a bank or management company, or those aimed at preventing fraud) are about mortgages and lease conditions. They do not tell you whether you are joint tenants or tenants in common.

If you ever download your own title and are unsure what it is telling you, we can translate it into plain English and confirm whether severance is needed.

Care-fees, tax and “asset protection” – keeping expectations honest

Severance is often mentioned in the same breath as “care-fees protection” or “asset protection”. It is important to keep this in perspective:

• Severance by itself does not protect against care fees, divorce settlements or creditors.
• Any protection comes, if at all, mainly from the Will trust or overall planning around your estate, and even then it is only ever potential protection.

You have no reasonable expectation of needing care and it isn’t a main concern for you; any care-fees impact is a potential side-benefit of the main reason you’re considering the trust.

Ethical and governance note

Fern Wills & LPAs drafts trusts that arise on death within Wills and, where needed, carries out severance of tenancy and Land Registry work so those structures can operate properly.

We do not act as trustees for clients’ trusts and we do not set up standalone “asset protection” lifetime trusts designed purely to shelter a home from means-testing. Where a specialist conveyancer or trust-administration service is needed, we can introduce you to an appropriate adviser and you remain free to choose who to use.

Is severance of tenancy right for you?

Severance is a small, almost invisible step – a notice, a form, a single line on the Land Registry – but it has a big impact on whether your Wills and any Will trusts can actually deliver what you intend for your family.

If you are:

• planning a Will trust such as a Property Life Interest Trust;
• in a second marriage or blended family;
• keen to avoid “sideways disinheritance”; or
• going through a separation and want your share to follow your own Will,

it is worth checking how your home is held and whether severance should be part of your planning.

If you are unsure, the best next step is simply to ask for a review. We can check your title, explain in plain English what it currently says, and then agree – together – whether severance of tenancy should form part of your Wills and trust package or not.