What is tenancy in common? A way for two or more people to own one property in shares that can be unequal, where each owner can sell or leave their share independently and nothing passes automatically at death.
Tenants in common each own a defined share of the whole, 50 and 50, or 60 and 40, or a third each, and every owner has the right to use all of the property regardless of share size. The shares are separate property: an owner can sell theirs, borrow against it, or leave it in a will to anyone, without the co-owners' consent. When a tenant in common dies, the share goes to their heirs, who become the surviving owners' new co-owners.
It is the default. In Nevada, a deed to two or more people who are not married and that does not say joint tenancy creates a tenancy in common (NRS 111.060). It is also the vesting that fits unequal contributions and unrelated co-owners: friends buying together, an investor and an occupant, siblings inheriting. The shares on the deed do not have to match the money in, but they should, because the deed is what a court reads first.
What it does not do is settle the exit. Nothing in the vesting says what happens when one owner wants out, how a buyout is priced, or who pays when one stops paying; a co-ownership agreement does that, and without one the remedy is a partition action, where a court orders the property divided or sold (NRS chapter 39). A tenancy in common is the right tool and an agreement is the missing half of it.
A worked example
Three friends buy a $520,000 house. One puts in $60,000, the other two $20,000 each, and the deed records them as tenants in common at 60, 20 and 20 percent. When the first friend later sells her share to a fourth person, the other two get a new co-owner and did not have to agree to it; their agreement gives them a right of first refusal, which is the only reason they were asked.
Buying a house with a friend: the agreement to write first
Questions people ask
Do tenants in common have to own equal shares?
No. Shares can be any split that adds to the whole and are stated on the deed. If the deed states no percentages, the law presumes equal shares, which is why unequal contributions should be written down.
What happens when one tenant in common wants to sell and the others do not?
They can sell their own share to anyone, though buyers for a fractional share are rare. Failing that, any co-owner can file a partition action and a court will order the property sold and the proceeds split by share, less what each owes the others.