# Joint tenants or tenants in common: buying a Queensland home together
Two or more buyers of one Queensland home must choose how they hold it. What each form means for shares, death, a forced sale, transfer duty and land tax.
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When two or more people buy one home in Queensland, the transfer form asks a question that the contract of sale never does: how will they hold it? There are two answers, joint tenants or tenants in common, and the one written on the form decides who owns what share, where a share goes when an owner dies, and how the arrangement can be undone. Couples often tick the box in a hurry at the conveyancer's request. Siblings, friends and parents buying with adult children have more reason to slow down.
This guide follows the choice through the life of the property: the law, the registry forms, severance, death, a forced sale, and how the Queensland Revenue Office treats co-buyers for transfer duty and land tax.
2forms of co-ownership in Queensland law
$700,000first home share pays no duty up to this value
$600,000land tax threshold, counted owner by owner
Property Law Act 2023, section 25; Queensland Revenue Office first home concession and land tax pages, read October 2026.
## Two ways to share one title
The Property Law Act 2023, which commenced on 1 August 2025 according to Crown Law, the Queensland Government's legal office, deals with co-ownership in Part 5, sections 25 to 43. Section 25 says property may be held by two or more people in one of two ways: as joint tenants or as tenants in common. The word "tenant" here has nothing to do with renting. It is an old word for a holder of land.
Joint tenants own the whole property together. Nobody has a separate share that can be pointed to, and the Queensland Revenue Office puts it this way in its duty guidance: joint tenants share full ownership without dividing the property into shares. Tenants in common each hold a defined share, which the Revenue Office notes may be equal or unequal and can be freely transferred. Either way, every co-owner is entitled to use the whole home. A tenant in common with a quarter share does not own a quarter of the rooms.
The two forms side by sideGeneral position under Queensland law
Question
Joint tenants
Tenants in common
What each owner holds
The whole, together with the others
A stated fraction, such as 1/2 or 3/4
Unequal shares
Not possible
Possible
On an owner's death
Passes to the surviving joint tenants
Passes under the will or the intestacy rules
Registry step after a death
Request to record death, Form 4
Transmission application, Form 5, 5A or 6
Sources: Property Law Act 2023, Part 5; Land Title Practice Manual, Parts 4 and 5; Queensland Revenue Office.
## Survivorship: the rule that outranks a will
The feature that separates the two forms is what lawyers call the right of survivorship. When a joint tenant dies, the Land Title Practice Manual, the working rule book of Titles Queensland, says the interest vests immediately in the surviving joint tenant or tenants. Nothing passes into the estate. If three siblings hold as joint tenants and one dies, the other two hold the whole. If one of those two later dies, the last survivor is the sole owner.
A will cannot change this. The Queensland Law Handbook, published by Caxton Legal Centre, states that survivorship applies regardless of what the deceased says in their will. A joint tenant who leaves "my half of the house" to a child from an earlier relationship has left nothing, because at the moment of death there is no half to leave.
Before signing
A joint tenant cannot leave the home to anyone by will
A joint tenant's interest passes to the surviving joint tenants on death, whatever the will says. An owner who wants a share to reach children, a parent or anyone other than the co-owner needs a tenancy in common, or needs to sever the joint tenancy while alive.
That is why the Handbook describes joint tenancy as suited to couples who intend a long life together and want the home to pass to the partner automatically. It is also why the form deserves thought in blended families, in purchases by friends, and where a parent goes on title with an adult child. A parent who is a joint tenant with one child will, on death, pass the whole home to that child and none of it to the child's brothers and sisters.
## Unequal shares and who paid what
Joint tenants cannot hold unequal interests. If one buyer puts in 80 per cent of the price and the other 20 per cent, and they register as joint tenants, the register treats them as owning the whole together, and survivorship applies to all of it.
Tenancy in common is the form built for unequal contributions. The Queensland Law Handbook notes that, traditionally, each tenant in common holds a fractional share in proportion to the money they provided. The shares do not have to track the money, though. Two friends can agree on half each even if their deposits differed, or on 3/5 and 2/5 to reflect who will carry more of the loan. What counts for the register is the fraction written on the transfer.
The fraction is not the end of the accounts. Section 27 of the Property Law Act 2023 makes a co-owner who receives more than a proportionate share of money from the property, such as rent from a third party, liable to account to the others. Day to day costs are a separate matter: the register says nothing about who pays the rates, the insurance or the mortgage. Those questions are settled by agreement between the owners, or, at the end, by a court.
## How the choice is recorded
Ownership of freehold land in Queensland passes on registration of a Form 1 Transfer. The Titles Queensland guide to transferring freehold land is direct about co-buyers: where there are two or more transferees, the form must state the tenancy, and if they are tenants in common it must state the share of each in fractions, not percentages. A 75 per cent and 25 per cent split is written as 3/4 and 1/4.
The Land Title Practice Manual adds that if the tenancy is left off the form, section 56(2) of the Land Title Act 1994 lets the Registrar register the buyers as tenants in common, but that the registry relies on this only after the transferees or their solicitor confirm in writing that the omission was intended. In practice, an incomplete form is sent back with a question.
The same guide lists what travels with the transfer: a Form 24 with property information for government agencies, and a duty notation from the Queensland Revenue Office, which every transfer must carry even when no duty is payable. Titles Queensland says most correctly prepared dealings are registered within three to five working days. From then on, the tenancy and any fractions appear next to the owners' names on a title search, priced at $25.71 on the registry's 2026-27 fee schedule, which is the only reliable way to check how an existing home is held.
## Severing a joint tenancy
A joint tenancy is not permanent. Any joint tenant can turn their own interest into a share held as a tenant in common, a step called severance, and in Queensland it can be done without the consent of the others.
The mechanism is section 59 of the Land Title Act 1994. As the Land Title Practice Manual describes it in the part updated on 28 April 2026, the section lets a joint tenant unilaterally sever the joint tenancy, so far as it relates to their own interest, by registering a transfer in favour of themselves. The Registrar must be satisfied that the severing owner has given each other joint tenant a copy of the transfer, or made a reasonable attempt to do so. Where the transfer is an electronic conveyancing document, written notice of the intention to sever takes the place of the copy. On registration the owner becomes a tenant in common with the others. The text of the section set out by the Supreme Court of Queensland in a 2005 decision adds that, where there are more than two joint tenants, the joint tenancy among the remaining owners is not affected.
Severing a joint tenancy at the titles registry
Prepare the transferA Form 1 in favour of the severing owner only, stating that it severs the joint tenancy under section 59.
Give the others a copyEach other joint tenant is given a copy, and a Form 20 declaration records how, or the attempts made.
Lodge and registerThe transfer is lodged with its duty notation. Severance takes effect on registration.
The Land Title Practice Manual adds that the copy may be given by hand, mail, courier or other reliable means, and that the share shown on the form is the number of severing owners divided by the total number of joint owners. One of two joint tenants therefore severs as to a 1/2 share.
Timing matters more than anything else. In the 2005 case, a transfer had been signed and sent to the other owner with a notice of intention to sever, but it had not been lodged when the sender died. The court declared that the joint tenancy continued until death, so survivorship applied. Section 59 works on registration, not on signing or posting.
Two costs attach to the step. The Queensland Revenue Office says no transfer duty applies under section 143 of the Duties Act 2001 where a transfer changes registered ownership from joint tenants to tenants in common, or the reverse, and the value of each co-owner's interest does not change. The registry charges a lodgement fee. The Titles Queensland fee schedule for 2026-27, which its alert of 15 June 2026 confirmed applies from 1 July 2026, sets the fee for lodging an instrument that changes ownership of one lot at $248.04, with a further $46.56 for each $10,000, or part of it, of consideration above $180,000. Titles Queensland revises its fees every 1 July.
## When a co-owner dies
Survivorship is automatic in law, but the register does not update itself. The Land Title Practice Manual, in the part updated on 28 April 2026, says it is the surviving joint tenant or tenants, not the executor, who apply to the Registrar using a Form 4, Request to record death. A copy of the death certificate certified by the issuing authority, or a copy of a grant of probate or letters of administration, supports the request. A declaration is generally needed only where the name on the certificate differs significantly from the name on the title.
The share of a tenant in common takes a longer road, because it belongs to the estate. The manual calls this a transmission application and offers three forms.
Which form follows a co-owner's death
Form
Used when
Who applies
Form 4
The deceased was a joint tenant
The surviving joint tenant or tenants
Form 5
A share or sole title, with a Queensland grant
The personal representative
Form 5A
A share or sole title, with no Queensland grant
The personal representative, or the person entitled to be
Form 6
A share or sole title left by will
The beneficiary, with the personal representative's consent
Source: Land Title Practice Manual, Parts 4 and 5, 5A, 6, updated 28 April 2026.
Duty follows the same split. The Queensland Revenue Office says no duty is payable on a transfer that results from the death of a joint tenant, under section 144 of the Duties Act 2001, and that this exemption does not apply to property held as tenants in common. A transfer of a tenant in common's share to a beneficiary is exempt under section 124 when it is made according to the will or the rules of intestacy. The Titles Queensland fee schedule for 2026-27 lists the lodgement of an instrument recording the death of a joint tenant at $46.56 for one lot, against $248.04 for any other instrument.
## When co-owners cannot agree to sell
A co-owner can always sell their own share, in theory. In practice almost nobody buys a fraction of an occupied home, so the real question is whether one owner can make the whole property go to market.
Under the Property Law Act 1974 the answer was the statutory trust for sale. Writing in the Queensland Law Society's journal Proctor, barrister Michael Thomson described how a co-owner applied under section 38 of that Act for trustees to be appointed to sell the property, with the proceeds divided according to each owner's interest.
The 2023 Act replaced that machinery and the phrase no longer appears in it. Section 33 now lets a co-owner apply to the court for a sale with the proceeds divided, a physical division of the property, or a mix of both, and requires the applicant to give a copy of the application to each holder of a security interest, such as a mortgagee, within 30 days. Section 34 lets the court make any order the case requires to ensure a just and fair sale or division.
Section 35 states a preference. If the court orders anything, it must order a sale and division of proceeds unless a physical division would be more just and fair, having regard to how the property is used, whether it can practically be divided, and any special attachment a co-owner has to it.
The court's tool kit is set out in sections 37 to 39. It may appoint a trustee to carry out the sale, though it no longer has to, and section 37 says that appointing a trustee does not of itself sever a joint tenancy. It may order a private sale or an auction, let co-owners buy, require an independent valuation, set a reserve and fix a deadline. That last kind of order is how one owner can end up buying out the other under court supervision.
## Settling the accounts between owners
A sale ends the co-ownership but not the argument about money. Section 40 of the 2023 Act lets the court order compensation or reimbursement between co-owners, or adjust their interests, and lists what it must consider: money reasonably spent on improvements, the cost of maintaining and insuring the property, damage from a co-owner's unreasonable use, and whether one owner paid more than their share of rates, mortgage repayments, purchase money or other outgoings.
The section also answers a question that often divides former couples and siblings: does the owner who stayed in the home owe rent to the one who left? For land, the court cannot order a rent-equivalent payment unless the occupying owner is claiming for money they spent on the property, the other owner was excluded from it, or the other owner suffered a detriment because it was not practicable to live there alongside the occupier.
Section 43 covers separating couples: the court may adjourn or stay a co-ownership proceeding where a proceeding under the Commonwealth's Family Law Act 1975 has started or is about to, so that the property is dealt with there.
## What a co-ownership agreement adds
The register records names, tenancy and fractions. Part 5 of the Property Law Act supplies a court process for the end. Between those two sits everything co-owners actually argue about, and a written co-ownership agreement is the document that fills the gap. It is a private contract, not a registry form, and it is not lodged with the title.
The matters such agreements usually cover can be read straight off section 40, because they are the same matters a court would otherwise weigh: who pays what share of the deposit, repayments, rates, insurance and repairs, how an improvement paid for by one owner is credited, and whether an owner who moves out is owed anything by the one who stays. They commonly go on to the exit: how the property is valued if one owner wants out, whether the others have the first right to buy that share and how long they have to do it, and what happens if nobody can.
An agreement matters most for tenants in common who are not a couple, since they have no family law process to fall back on. It does not change the tenancy on the register and cannot override survivorship between joint tenants.
## Transfer duty when only some buyers qualify
Queensland's home concessions are claimed person by person. The Queensland Revenue Office states that a buyer who qualifies can claim a concession on their own interest whether or not the other buyers qualify, that not every buyer needs to claim the same concession, and that all the interests and concessions are then combined to calculate the total duty. Its own illustration is a couple in which one partner claims the first home concession and the other the home concession.
The figures behind the two concessions come from the Revenue Office pages. The home concession applies a lower rate to the first $350,000 of the home's value and saves up to $7,175; on a $550,000 home bought by eligible buyers, duty is $10,600 instead of $17,775. The first home concession applies to homes valued under $800,000 and saves up to $24,525, with no duty at all at $700,000 or under and, in the office's example, $6,555 on a $730,000 home. Both require the buyer to move in within one year of settlement and live there on a daily basis.
Share by share
The fraction on the transfer sets each buyer's duty
Because each concession attaches to a buyer's own interest, the shares chosen for a tenancy in common also decide how much of the price is taxed at a concessional rate. The Queensland Revenue Office calls these calculations complex and points mixed claims to its transfer duty calculator.
The Revenue Office gives an example of a buyer who misses out. One buyer, an Australian citizen, takes a 75 per cent interest and qualifies. The other takes 25 per cent and is not a citizen, permanent resident or specified foreign retiree, a test that applies to transactions entered into from 1 August 2026. The first buyer's concession applies to the 75 per cent. The second buyer's 25 per cent is assessed at full transfer duty, with additional foreign acquirer duty on top. A share taken by a co-buyer who will not live in the home, such as an investor or a parent, likewise falls outside the concessions.
Later changes between co-owners are dutiable unless an exemption fits, and the Revenue Office's examples show how narrow the fit is. A change from joint tenants to tenants in common that leaves the value of each interest unchanged is exempt under section 143. A gift of a share to a spouse is exempt under section 151 only if, afterwards, the couple own the entire home between them in equal shares or as joint tenants and live in it as their principal place of residence.
## Land tax for co-owners
Land tax in Queensland is assessed on the owner, not on the property. The Queensland Revenue Office says an individual is liable when the total taxable value of their freehold land at midnight on 30 June is $600,000 or more, and that this total includes their share in land owned jointly with others. At $600,000 the tax starts at $500 plus 1 cent for each dollar above the threshold.
Two consequences follow for co-owners. A home that every owner lives in is usually outside the calculation, but the home exemption is not automatic for the title as a whole: the Revenue Office says that for land with joint owners, each owner wanting to claim an exemption must apply separately. A co-owner who does not live there, such as a parent on title to help a child buy, has no home exemption for that share, and its value is added to any other land that parent owns.
A worked example, with illustrative figures, shows the owner-by-owner effect. Suppose land with a taxable value of $900,000 that is not anyone's home. Held by one individual with no other land, it is $300,000 over the threshold, and the tax is $500 plus 1 cent on $300,000, or $3,500. Held by two individuals in equal shares, each with no other land, each owner's share is $450,000, which is under the $600,000 threshold. The result changes as soon as either owner holds other taxable land, because the share is added to it.