H. B. 2707
(By Delegate Michael)
[Introduced February 9, 1999; referred to the
Committee on the Judiciary.]
A BILL to amend and reenact section twenty, article one, chapter
thirty-six of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine
hundred thirty-one, as amended, relating to prohibiting a
cotenant in real property who is convicted of feloniously
killing another cotenant from obtaining the victim's share
in the joint property through joint survivorship provisions.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That section twenty, article one, chapter thirty-six of the
code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as
amended, be amended and reenacted to read as follows:
ARTICLE 1. CREATION OF ESTATES GENERALLY.
§36-1-20. When survivorship preserved.
(a) The preceding section shall not apply to any estate
which joint tenants have as executors or trustees, nor to an
estate conveyed or devised to persons in their own right, when it manifestly appears from the tenor of the instrument that it was
intended that the part of the one dying should then belong to the
others. Neither shall it affect the mode of proceeding on any
joint judgment or decree in favor of, or on any contract with,
two or more, one of whom dies.
(b) When the instrument of conveyance or ownership in any
estate, whether real estate or tangible or intangible personal
property, links multiple owners together with the disjunctive
"or," such ownership shall be held as joint tenants with the
right of survivorship, unless expressly stated otherwise.
(c) No person who is convicted of feloniously killing
another, or of conspiracy of killing another, may take or acquire
property by survivorship pursuant to this section, and the
property to which the person so convicted would otherwise have
been entitled shall go to the person or persons who would have
taken the same if the person so convicted had predeceased the
victim.
Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken
from the present law, and underscoring indicates new language
that would be added.