Coparcenary

A species of estate, or tenaney, which exists where lands of inheritance descend from the ancestor to two or more persons, It arises in Englund either by common Jaw or particular custom. By common law, as where a person, seised in fee-situple or fee-tail, dies, and his next heirs are two or more females, his daughters, sisters, aunts, cousins, or their representatives; in this case they all inherit, and these coheirs are then called “coparceners,” or, for brevity, “parceners” only.

Litt. $§ 241, 242; 2 Bl. Comm. 187.

By particular custom, as Where iands descend, as in gavelkind, to all the miles in equal degree, as sons, brothers, uncles, ete.

Litt. § 265; 1 Steph. Comm. 319.

While joint tenancies refer to persons, the idea of coparcenary refers to the estate. The title to it is always by descent. The respective shares May be unequal; as, for instance, one daughtor and two granddaughters, children of a deceased daughter, may take by the same act of descout, As to strangers, the tenauts’ scisin is a joint one, but, as between themselyes, each is seised of his orker own share, on whose death it goes to the heirs, and not by survivorship. The right of possession of coparcenérs is in common, and the possession of one is, in general, the possession of the others.

1 Washb. Real Prop. *414.