Joint Tenants in Common - JTIC

You and your brother own a hunting cabin in the mountains of China, where you stalk pandas for their pelts (and for fun). If you hold the cabin as joint tenants in common, it means your don't have right of survivorship with each other for that property.

If one of you dies, that person's heirs get their ownership. It doesn't revert to the other owner, as it would in a different ownership situation known as "joint tenancy."

One day, your brother gets mauled by a panda and dies. His ownership in the cabin goes to his widow. Under a joint tenancy situation, his share would have gone to you, because joint tenancy includes right of survivorship. However, since you held it as joint tenants in common, that doesn't happen in this case. Now, you have to deal with your sister-in-law when you want to go panda hunting.