Professor P didn’t think highly of the lawyers in today’s case.1
Professor P: “This is a classic example of a badly drafted document. When you use a form, make sure you are the master of the form. Do not use words that you don’t understand.”
Professor P: “So what did the lawyer do in this case?”
Jill: “Well, he didn’t know how to draft the will so he called up a lawyer buddy of his, and that’s where the ambiguous language came from…”
Professor P: “Thereby proving that two bad lawyers are not better than one bad lawyer!”
1 Camp v. Camp, 220 Va. 595 (Va. 1979) The lawyer confused tenancy in common with a joint tenancy. (An explanation is here).
The specific clause in the contract is “as tenants in common with the right of survivorship.” The problem is that tenants in common have no right of survivorship.