Joint tenancy simply doesn't exist here
Under ORS § 93.180, joint tenancy in real property is abolished in Oregon, except for property conveyed to a trustee or personal representative. Using the words "joint tenants," or similar words, without any other indication of an intent to create survivorship, creates a tenancy in common — not the survivorship arrangement most people would assume that phrase creates in other states.
What a clear declaration actually creates
When a deed does clearly and expressly declare survivorship, Oregon law doesn't call the result a joint tenancy. Instead, it creates concurrent life estates with cross-contingent remainders in the fee simple: each co-owner holds a life estate, with a contingent remainder in the property that vests in whoever survives. In practical, everyday terms, this produces the same basic outcome as a joint tenancy — the survivor ends up owning the whole property — but the underlying legal structure is genuinely different.
Why the difference matters: it can't be unilaterally broken
Here's where the distinction has real consequences. An ordinary common-law joint tenancy, as recognized in most other states, can be severed by one co-owner unilaterally conveying away their own share — converting the arrangement into a tenancy in common as to that share. Oregon's cross-contingent-remainder structure doesn't work this way. Because each co-owner's interest is a contingent remainder rather than a freely severable joint tenancy interest, a single owner generally can't destroy the arrangement just by conveying their own interest to someone else.
The case that proved it
A real Oregon Supreme Court case shows exactly how this plays out. A husband and wife, as part of a divorce settlement, had deeded property to themselves as "joint tenants with right of survivorship and not as tenants in common." After the divorce, the husband conveyed his own one-half interest in the property to his nephew — an act that, under ordinary joint tenancy rules, would have severed the tenancy and given the nephew a straightforward tenancy-in-common share. The Oregon Supreme Court held otherwise: because Oregon's survivorship arrangement creates indestructible contingent remainders rather than a severable joint tenancy, the husband's conveyance didn't defeat the wife's survivorship interest. When the husband later died, the property still passed to the wife as the surviving party, not to the nephew.
Tenancy by the entirety is automatic for spouses
Married couples get a separate, automatic default: a conveyance or devise of real property to spouses married to each other creates a tenancy by the entirety unless the deed clearly and expressly declares otherwise. This is the opposite default from unmarried co-owners, who need clear survivorship language to get any survivorship at all.
A separate rule for personal property
Real property and personal property are governed by separate Oregon statutes. Since 1975, a dedicated statute addresses joint tenancy in personal property, and Oregon courts have confirmed that this later statute didn't eliminate other pre-existing forms of joint ownership with survivorship for personal property — it added a specific statutory path without making that path exclusive.
A newer tool for real estate
None of this changes the fact that Oregon also offers a completely separate, more modern tool for keeping real estate out of probate. See our guide to the Oregon transfer-on-death deed for how that works alongside these survivorship rules.