Definition
Spes accrescendi (Latin: "hope of surviving" or "hope of accruing") is a civil law and common law concept describing the expectant interest that a joint tenant or co-owner holds in the share of a co-owner who may predecease them. It is the contingent hope — not yet a vested right — that a survivor will take the whole of jointly held property by operation of the right of survivorship. The spes accrescendi is not itself a property right capable of alienation or devise; it is a mere expectancy, dependent entirely on the holder outliving the other co-owner or co-owners.
In the context of joint tenancy, each tenant simultaneously holds the whole estate and a spes accrescendi — the prospect that, if they survive, the shares of deceased joint tenants will accrue to them automatically, without passing through the estate of the deceased. This distinguishes joint tenancy from tenancy in common, where no such survivorship expectancy exists.
---
Common Confusion
Spes accrescendi is sometimes loosely equated with the right of survivorship itself, but the two are distinct. The right of survivorship is the operative legal mechanism that transfers the interest upon death; spes accrescendi is the anticipatory hope of that outcome while both parties remain living. One is the expectancy; the other is the realized consequence. Researchers encountering the phrase in equity opinions should be alert to this distinction, as courts occasionally used the terms interchangeably in a loose sense while analytically treating them differently.
The term should also not be confused with jus accrescendi, which is the actual right of accrual — the legal entitlement that vests upon the co-owner's death. Spes accrescendi is the hope; jus accrescendi is the right once activated.
---
Why It Matters in Research
This term appears most frequently in equity and chancery materials dealing with joint tenancy, and researchers should expect it in cases addressing whether a joint tenant's interest can be reached by creditors, severed by conveyance, or defeated by equitable assignment. The underlying question is often whether a mere spes — an unripe hope — constitutes sufficient property to support a legal claim or equitable charge.
In historical sources, the concept carries weight in disputes over whether one joint tenant could contract away or encumber the survivorship expectancy before death crystallized the right. Equity courts were divided: some treated the spes as too speculative to reach; others found it a sufficient interest for equitable relief when the holder had acted in reliance on it.
Black's 2nd Edition entries it alongside two maxims — "Spes est vigilantis somnium" (hope is the dream of the vigilant) and "Spes impunitatis continuum affectum tribuit delinquendi" (the hope of impunity holds out a continual temptation to crime) — suggesting the editorial treatment is thematic rather than strictly analytical. Researchers should not read these companion maxims as legal glosses on spes accrescendi specifically; they are illustrative of the broader Latin concept of spes, not refinements of the survivorship doctrine.
The citation to 3 Atk. 762 (Atkyns' Chancery Reports) and 2 Kent's Commentaries 424 in Black's are the entry points into primary authority. Kent's treatment of joint tenancy remains one of the clearest early American expositions of survivorship expectancy and is accessible in Law Mind's historical corpus.
Jurisdictional caution: in American jurisdictions that have statutorily abolished or disfavored joint tenancy — requiring tenancies in common unless survivorship is expressly stated — the practical relevance of spes accrescendi diminishes significantly, because the underlying estate form generating the expectancy is less likely to exist.
---
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's 2nd Edition is the sole historical dictionary source here, and its entry is compressed — essentially a translation, two citations, and two companion maxims. It does not define the term analytically or explain its operation in property law. This is a case where the historical dictionary provides a breadcrumb rather than a map.
The fuller doctrinal treatment lives in Kent's Commentaries and chancery case law. Black's entry is useful as a corpus locator and for confirming the term's currency in American legal vocabulary of the period, but researchers should not rely on it for substantive analysis of how courts applied the concept.
No divergence between historical sources is identifiable here because only one source is represented. The absence of the term from later editions of Black's at equivalent depth suggests it receded from active legal vocabulary as joint tenancy doctrine became codified and the Latin terminology gave way to plain-English statutory formulations.
---
Jurisdictional Note
The concept has greatest operational relevance in jurisdictions that recognize joint tenancy with right of survivorship as a live estate form. States that have statutorily converted joint tenancies to tenancies in common absent express survivorship language effectively eliminate the conditions under which spes accrescendi arises. Community property states present additional complexity, as survivorship interests may be governed by different rules entirely.
---