Hello.  "Undivided interests" are the results of deeds, lawsuits, or estates by which one becomes a joint owner of land with someone else, usually by virtue of the same document/instrument. 

If the will of your father devised his home to "my surviving children", you kids will be joint owners of all the property, and any division into smaller tracts will be left for you all to determine and sell, mark off or have surveyed, after which each can do with his/her tract as they choose.  And the same result comes about if he died intestate (after 1775 in VA) and a widower; all his kids would inherit all his property "jointly", and would then sell off the land an split the money, or mark it off in tracts, and deal with those smaller plots individually as they chose.   

Similarly if you and your siblings sue someone for having tricked a member off your family out of land that you should have, if you win you will have joint ownership in the prize until you divide it among yourselves.  

Finally, if your sister executes a deed conveying land to you and your husband, or to you and your child, or to another brother or sister, or to "all her brothers" a joint estate is created, as above, and all own undivided interests, which they must settle among themselves.  

There are and have been other legal devices that create joint ownership, but those are more rare and not needed to answer your question.  Paul
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Harriet Lee Welch 
  To: [log in to unmask] 
  Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 2004 7:12 AM
  Subject: Undivided interest in real estate


  Could someone define "undivided interest" in real estate? Are there any
  circumstances where an individual who conveys their undivided interest would
  not be the heir of a deceased?

  Thanks!
  Harriet Welch

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