How should you hold title in Georgia?

The vesting line on your deed is three or four words long and decides what happens to the property when one owner dies. It is worth more thought than it usually gets, and it is easier to get right at closing than to fix afterwards.

Joint tenants with right of survivorship

When one owner dies, their interest passes automatically to the surviving owner. It does not go through probate and it does not pass under the deceased owner's will.

This is what most married couples in Georgia use, and for good reason — it is simple, and it keeps the family home out of probate at the worst possible moment. Georgia requires the survivorship language to be express, which is why the wording on the deed matters.

Tenants in common

Each owner holds a distinct, separately transferable share. When an owner dies, their share passes under their will or by intestacy — through probate, to their heirs, not to the co-owner.

This is usually the right choice for unmarried co-buyers, business partners and investors, and for anyone with children from a previous relationship who wants their share to go to them. Shares need not be equal, and the deed can say so.

What Georgia does not have

Tenancy by the entirety — a form of joint ownership available only to married couples that also shields the property from the individual creditors of one spouse. A number of states have it. Georgia does not.

This catches people relocating from Florida, Virginia, Maryland and elsewhere who assume it is available and expect the creditor protection that comes with it. Here it simply is not on the menu.

Entities and trusts

Title can be held by an LLC, a corporation or a trust, and each brings its own considerations — liability, tax treatment, estate planning and, in the case of financing, whether your lender will allow it.

If you are going this route, tell us at the start of the file. We will need the entity or trust documents and confirmation that the person signing is authorised, and that is a much calmer conversation in week one than in the closing week.

Getting it right

We ask how you intend to take title on the buyer information sheet, and if you are unsure the honest answer is to say so. Where the choice carries real estate-planning weight — blended families, significant separate property, creditor exposure — the right move is a conversation with an estate planning attorney before closing, not a guess at the table.