Affidavit of Surviving Joint Tenant Title-Clearance Requirements in South Carolina

At a glance

Requirements one by one

The creating instrument must preserve survivorship

S.C. Code § 62-2-804 supplies the general rule. A real-property joint tenancy is deemed severed at death and becomes a tenancy in common unless the instrument that created it expressly provides a right of survivorship.

Section 27-7-40(a) supplies a conclusive safe-harbor phrase: naming the grantees “as joint tenants with rights of survivorship, and not as tenants in common.” Its opening clause preserves other lawful creation methods, so that quoted phrase should not be described as the only possible survivorship language. Section 27-7-40(c) also states that it does not create tenancy by the entirety.

The survivor files the certified death certificate

Section 27-7-40(b) permits the surviving joint tenant or tenants to file a certified copy of the deceased joint tenant's certificate of death. The statute does not call for an affidavit of survivorship, a survivor declaration, a deed, or a court order.

Because the filed item is the certified death certificate, the section imposes no survivor signature, oath, acknowledgment, notary, witness, personal-knowledge, property-description, deed-reference, tax, lien, or no-severance recital. Those are not statewide requirements for this filing.

Office, indexing, fee, and effect

File with the Register of Deeds for the county where the real estate is located. Section 27-7-40(b) states no post-death deadline. The filing fee is the same as the fee charged for a deed of conveyance.

The Register of Deeds must index the certificate under the deceased joint tenant's name in the grantor deed index. Filing is conclusive that the joint tenant died and that the deceased tenant's interest vested by operation of law in the surviving joint tenant or tenants.

That effect depends on a qualifying survivorship estate. The certificate does not repair an instrument that lacked survivorship, undo a lifetime severance, or decide a dispute over which recorded ownership existed at death.

What trips people up

Adding an affidavit creates requirements the statute does not have. The statewide route is the certified death certificate itself. A separate sworn packet with witnesses, notarization, property recitals, and tax or lien statements is not part of § 27-7-40(b).

The certificate is indexed under the deceased owner. The statute specifically uses the grantor deed index and the deceased joint tenant's name, not the survivor's name as grantee.

The deed-equivalent amount is a filing fee, not a new deed requirement. Section 27-7-40(b) borrows the deed fee while keeping the filed instrument a certified death certificate.

The effect is conclusive only after a valid survivorship interest. Section 62-2-804 makes ordinary joint tenancy sever at death unless the creating instrument expressly preserved survivorship.

Common questions

Must I prepare an affidavit of surviving joint tenant? No. Section 27-7-40(b) prescribes filing the certified death certificate and does not require an affidavit.

Does the original deed have to use the statute's exact quoted phrase? That phrase conclusively creates the statutory joint tenancy, but §§ 27-7-40(a) and 62-2-804 both preserve other methods or language that expressly provide a right of survivorship.

Does South Carolina turn a spouse's attempted tenancy by the entirety into this estate? Section 27-7-40(c) says the section must not be construed to create tenancy by the entirety. The recorded instrument must be evaluated under the ownership law that actually applies to it.

Statutes and sources

• S.C. Code § 27-7-40 — survivorship creation safe harbor, certificate filing, filer, fee, indexing, conclusive effect, and no tenancy by the entirety. https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t27c007.php (accessed 2026-08-03).
• S.C. Code § 62-2-804 — default severance at death unless the creating instrument expressly supplies survivorship. https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t62c002.php (accessed 2026-08-03).