A historical rule with no survivorship at all
A notable historical Arkansas Supreme Court decision held something genuinely surprising by modern standards: that right of survivorship was not an incident of joint tenancy under Arkansas law. Even where a deed would, at common law, have created a joint tenancy with automatic survivorship, Arkansas's own statute at the time meant the property instead descended or was inherited as an estate in common when one of the co-owners died — the surviving co-owner got no automatic windfall, and the deceased owner's heirs stepped into their share just as they would under an ordinary tenancy in common.
Today's rule: express survivorship required
Modern Arkansas law has moved past that historical position, but it still shares the same underlying caution about survivorship not being automatic. Under Ark. Code § 18-12-603, a deed to two or more people is presumed to create a tenancy in common by default. To actually create a joint tenancy with right of survivorship, the deed must clearly indicate that intent — survivorship in Arkansas has always needed to be expressly spelled out, whether the underlying rule was "never automatic" (the historical position) or "not automatic without clear words" (today's position).
Equal shares required
Under Ark. Code § 18-12-106, each joint tenant must own an equal share of property held in joint tenancy with right of survivorship. Two co-owners each hold 50%; three co-owners each hold one-third. Co-owners who want unequal percentages need to use tenancy in common instead, giving up the automatic survivorship feature in exchange for that flexibility.
Tenancy by the entirety, for spouses only
Married Arkansas couples have access to a third option: tenancy by the entirety, available only to spouses. It works similarly to joint tenancy with survivorship, but with one meaningful difference — both spouses must consent before the property can be transferred, giving each spouse a form of veto power over a sale or mortgage that ordinary joint tenants don't have over each other.
Reading an old deed carefully
Because Arkansas's approach to survivorship has genuinely shifted over its legal history, and because the exact language needed to establish it has always mattered, anyone examining an older Arkansas deed benefits from careful attention to both its execution date and its precise wording, rather than assuming modern conventions apply automatically to a decades-old document.
A separate tool for real estate that isn't jointly titled
None of this changes the fact that Arkansas also offers a completely separate route for keeping real estate out of probate. See our guide to the Arkansas beneficiary deed for how that tool works alongside these joint ownership rules.