Survivorship abolished by statute, unless manifest otherwise
Under W. Va. Code § 36-1-19, when a joint tenant or tenant by the entireties of an interest in real or personal property dies, their share descends or is disposed of as if they had been a tenant in common. This is a sweeping statutory rule: it abolishes automatic survivorship as a default matter for both joint tenancy and tenancy by the entirety alike. The related § 36-1-20 creates the exception — survivorship still applies if it "manifestly appears from the tenor of the instrument" that the parties intended the deceased owner's share to belong to the others.
The four unities still matter, separately
The West Virginia Supreme Court, in Herring v. Carroll (1983), clarified an important related point: these statutes abrogating automatic survivorship do not abolish the common-law requirement of the "four unities" needed to create a joint tenancy in the first place — time, interest, possession, and title. In other words, whether a joint tenancy exists at all is still governed by these traditional common-law requirements; the statute only changes what happens to survivorship once a valid joint tenancy is established. These are two separate legal questions that both have to be answered correctly.
The case that shows divorce doesn't end it
The same body of West Virginia case law addressed a genuinely surprising scenario: what happens to a joint tenancy's survivorship after the joint tenants divorce? The holding is clear and direct: a divorce decree, alone, does not cause a severance of a joint tenancy. The right of survivorship of a joint tenant does not arise out of the marriage relationship — it's a property-law concept, not a marital one. Absent either an express intent to sever or conduct inconsistent with continuing the joint tenancy, the right of survivorship will continue after a dissolution of the marriage of the joint tenants.
Why this genuinely surprises people
Most people going through a divorce would reasonably assume that once the marriage legally ends, any special property arrangement tied to that marriage ends with it. West Virginia's rule shows that's not automatically true for joint tenancy: two ex-spouses who once titled their home as joint tenants can remain locked into that same survivorship relationship for years, or even decades, after their divorce — right up until one of them dies, at which point the surviving ex-spouse inherits the whole property, exactly as if the divorce had never happened.
The fix is available, but has to be taken
West Virginia case law does confirm a clean solution: in circumstances of divorce, joint tenants can agree to hold their former marital home, or any other jointly owned property, as tenants in common instead — ending the automatic survivorship between them going forward. The catch is that this requires an affirmative step. Divorcing couples who don't specifically address their jointly titled property this way, as part of or after the divorce, may be leaving an old survivorship arrangement quietly intact without realizing it.
Self-conveyance is directly authorized
Separately, West Virginia statute eliminates the need for a straw party when creating a joint tenancy: an owner can convey directly to themselves and one or more other people as joint tenants with right of survivorship, without routing the transaction through an intermediary the way older common-law rules would have required.
A separate, more modern tool for real estate
None of this changes the fact that West Virginia also offers a completely separate route for keeping real estate out of probate. See our guide to the West Virginia transfer-on-death deed for how that tool works alongside these joint ownership rules.