New York slayers and tenancies by the entirety

Kathleen Reilly (J.D. Candidate, June 2009) recently authored an article entitled Making a Killing in Real Estate: Solving the Mystery of Murder’s Effect on Tenancy by the Entirety in New York—A Legislative Solution, 82 St. John’s L. Rev. 1203 (2008).

Here is an excerpt from the Note’s introduction:

This Note focuses on issues that arise when the slayer and the victim have concurrent ownership of property as tenants by the entirety. Tenancy by the entirety is a unique form of concurrent ownership because it can only be formed in real property by husband and wife and cannot be unilaterally severed or partitioned. In addition, each tenant has a right of survivorship–meaning that, during their lifetimes, each tenant has a one-half undivided interest in the property, but upon the natural death of one tenant, title to the entire property vests in the survivor. When the death is the result of murder committed by the co-tenant, however, the survivor’s interest is uncertain. In these cases, depriving the slayer of his interest under Riggs would not just prevent him from acquiring the victim’s property, but may also result in a forfeiture of his own property interest.