Forms of Ownership, Transfer, and Recording of Title
Concurrent ownership
Tenancy in common gives co-owners undivided but unequal shares with no survivorship; each interest is freely inheritable and conveyable. Joint tenancy requires the four unities of time, title, interest, and possession and produces survivorship. Alabama does not imply survivorship; the conveyance must state the survivorship intent expressly. A joint tenant who conveys severs the joint tenancy and creates a tenancy in common between the grantee and the remaining owners.
Estates and business forms
Fee simple absolute is the largest estate. Lesser estates include the life estate (followed by a remainder or reversion), the fee simple determinable (automatic reversion to the grantor), and the fee simple subject to a condition subsequent. Title may be held by individuals, general or limited partnerships, corporations, LLCs, trusts, syndications, condominiums (a unit plus an undivided interest in common elements), and cooperatives (stock plus a proprietary lease).
Transfer and recording
Title passes voluntarily by deed or will and involuntarily by foreclosure, tax sale, adverse possession, eminent domain, and escheat. Recording protects a grantee but never cures a defective deed. In Alabama the probate judge of the county where the land lies is the recording officer, and the recording statute protects a later purchaser for value who takes without notice. Notice may be actual, constructive (the public record), or inquiry (facts that would prompt a reasonable investigation).
Traps and worked example
Delivery and acceptance, not mere signing, make a deed operative. A quitclaim grantee generally cannot claim bona fide purchaser status for the interest quitclaimed. Worked example: A and B hold as joint tenants; A deeds her interest to C, severing the joint tenancy so that B and C hold as tenants in common, and B's half will pass to B's heirs rather than to C.