Arizona · A.R.S. §33-431Arizona vesting: tenancy in common, joint tenancy and community property with right of survivorship

How the deed names the buyers decides what happens when one of them dies. In Arizona a grant of real property to two or more people creates an estate in common – not a joint tenancy – unless the law provides otherwise; grants in trust, to executors or to a husband and wife are excepted (A.R.S. §33-431(A)). A grant to two or more people vests the estate in the survivor only when it expressly declares a joint tenancy with right of survivorship, and a sole owner can create one by deeding to themselves and others (§33-431(B)). A grant to a husband and wife can expressly create community property with right of survivorship, and spouses already holding as community property can deed to themselves in that form (§33-431(C)). Either spouse, or any joint tenant, can end the right of survivorship by recording an affidavit terminating right of survivorship, under oath, describing the instrument that created it and the property; for spouses the community interest itself survives the affidavit (§33-431(D)–(E)).