My firsthand experience trying to establish tenancy-by-the-entirety accounts at Fidelity and Vanguard, with J.P. Morgan
Key Takeaways
- A brokerage account labeled “joint” is not necessarily owned as TBE. JTWROS and TBE are different ownership forms with different creditor consequences.
- Fidelity let us submit an online conversion request. Vanguard sent us back to paper and required a new account.
- Loumpos made TBE easier for qualifying bank accounts under Fla. Stat. § 655.79. It did not rewrite the law for brokerage accounts.
- A living trust does not fund itself. Signing documents while ignoring the actual account titles leaves the plan unfinished.
- The comprehensive Verras Law guide contains the complete legal analysis, brokerage comparison, implementation guidance, FAQs and primary authorities.
As an estate planning lawyer in practice since 1993, I should have all my own affairs in order. I do not.
Everyone should take advantage of every asset protection tool available to them, regardless of livelihood or lifestyle. Neither my spouse or I are in high-risk professions, we both prefer quiet-and-boring to risky-and-exciting, and as far as I know no one we’ve never hurt anyone. Nonetheless, as I advise my clients: Anyone can be sued, and if that happens it is important to be both well-insured and judgment-proof beforehand. If you wait until someone decides to sue you, it is too late to get insurance or to protect your assets.
My spouse and I have a joint revocable trust with our homestead titled to our trust, wills, advance directives, and established LLCs and corporations, but we have not taken advantage of one of the most powerful estate planning and asset protection tools available to Florida residents, which I recommend to all my married clients, and which I expressly provide for in every joint trust I write: tenancy by the entirety, or TBE.
The question matters because Florida tenancy by the entirety, or TBE, can place qualifying property beyond the reach of a creditor of either spouse. It does not protect against an enforceable claim against both spouses. Florida separately provides powerful protections for a qualifying homestead, many retirement accounts, annuity proceeds, life-insurance cash value and other specified assets, all of which we have implemented. However, TBE can be especially important for an ordinary taxable portfolio that may have no independent exemption of its own.
None of this depends on the spouses’ sexes. It depends on lawful marriage. Under Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. 644 (2015) and the cases that have followed it, Florida must make TBE asset protection available on the same terms to lawfully married same-sex and opposite-sex couples.
Even after advising hundreds of couples to “make sure your joint brokerage accounts are titled to you both as tenants by the entirety,” I had not done so myself. Several weeks ago, I decided to fix that.
Since then I have learned firsthand how difficult it can be to answer what should be a simple question: How do two married Florida residents make sure their brokerage account is titled as tenants by the entirety? A basic ownership choice turned into hours and days of digging through menus, forms and legal documents.
“Joint” Does Not Automatically Mean TBE
Many brokerage accounts owned by married couples are registered as JTWROS, meaning joint tenants with right of survivorship. JTWROS and TBE both provide survivorship. Only TBE adds Florida’s distinctive protection against a separate creditor of one spouse.
Florida gives qualifying spousal joint deposit accounts a favorable statutory TBE presumption under Fla. Stat. § 655.79. But that is a bank-account statute, not a substitute for an express TBE registration on an account holding stocks, mutual funds or ETFs. If TBE protection is the objective, I want my brokerage’s records to say TBE rather than leave the issue for a judge to reconstruct later.
Late last year, the Florida Supreme Court added a boost to TBE worth knowing about. In Loumpos v. Bank One (Fla. Dec. 11, 2025), the Court held that the presumption established by Fla. Stat. § 655.79 (that bank accounts titled jointly to spouses are TBE) is not defeated merely because the common-law unities of time and title are absent. That matters for deposit accounts, making the statutory TBE even stronger than common-law TBE. It does not convert a JTWROS brokerage account into TBE or excuse my sloppy brokerage titling. Brokerage accounts still depend on the common-law analysis and the account’s actual registration and governing agreement.
It Took Some Digging At Fidelity, But It Appears To Be Doable Online
My spouse and I already had a taxable Fidelity brokerage account registered JTWROS. I tried to open a new TBE account, but their the only joint account options on their online account opening workflow are tenants-in-common or JTWROS. Google searches eventually led me to a Fidelity account registration change form that allows JTWROS to be changed to TBE. In August 2026, we submited an online request to change the existing registration of our JTWROS acount to TBE. Fidelity required that our marriage license and documentation concerning my Green Card holder spouse’s legal residence in the United States be included with the form.
The request has been submitted but, as of this writing, Fidelity has not completed the conversion or even processed our request. I am reporting the process; I won’t declare victory until Fidelity’s records actually show TBE on the account. The useful part is that Fidelity did not initially require us to open a new account and transfer every security. If this process works, all the securities held in our JTWROS account will be held in the same account, now titled as TBE.
Vanguard Sent Us Back to Paper – And “Snail Mail”
Vanguard was completely different. Its ordinary online process would neither establish a new TBE account nor convert our existing JTWROS account to TBE. None of the two Vanguard reps I spoke with understood what I meant by “tenants by the entirety” or “TBE” until I escalated to a supervisor, who recognized the requested TBE ownership. She advised the Vanguard’s ordinary online workflow could not be used to open a TBE account. Vanguard required a paper application to open an entirely new brokerage account.
On the new account registration form, if you select “Joint” it will be JTWROS. If you want anything else you have to write in yourself. We eventually requested the exact registration “Tenants by Entirety with Right of Survivorship – TEN ENT WROS.” It took me hours of digging to confirm that Vanguard uses that particular label. A basic ownership election should not be this hard to find.
The initial Vanguard application did not require our marriage license or separate proof of my spouse’s legal residence, but since we are submitting a paper application by mail, I included it. If the new account is approved, we can then transfer the appropriate investments from our existing JTWROS account. In other words, Vanguard turned a title change into a new-account project.
J.P. Morgan Requires a Bank Branch Visit And Contact With an Actual Human Person
My spouse and I also have a joint J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing brokerage account. J.P. Morgan recognizes TBE brokerage ownership in states where it exists, but I have not yet attempted the conversion. There is no assistance online. My research and my phone calls to customer service both indicate that establishing the account requires a visit to a Chase branch. I will not pretend that research is the same as firsthand experience. I will update the comprehensive guide after I actually go through the process.
The Other Brokerages Are a Patchwork
On paper, Fidelity, Vanguard, J.P. Morgan, Charles Schwab, Merrill, Morgan Stanley, E*TRADE, Wells Fargo Advisors, Interactive Brokers and other firms recognize TBE in some fashion. In practice, the industry is a patchwork. Some firms make TBE an obvious registration choice. Others bury it behind paper forms, legal documents or customer-service channels. An ownership form that can determine whether family savings survive a creditor should not be treated like a secret menu item.
I put the larger brokerage comparison, complete legal analysis, implementation guidance, FAQs and links to primary authorities in my Florida TBE Brokerage Account and Asset Protection Guide. This blog is my personal field report. The guide is where I maintain the full law and current procedures.
Why This Matters When You Have a Living Trust
This exercise reinforced something I emphasize with estate-planning clients: I do not hand them a binder and call the job finished. A revocable trust, also called a revocable living trust or living trust, does not crawl into Fidelity, Vanguard or J.P. Morgan and change the account registrations on its own.
When I prepare estate plans, I help clients implement them, including appropriate account retitling and trust funding. For married couples, I also consider whether moving property into a trust could disturb an existing TBE position. I generally draft joint revocable living trusts with provisions intended to maximize the available TBE protection of qualifying assets transferred into the trust, although Florida law on TBE treatment inside joint revocable trusts is not completely settled. That caveat matters, but it is not an excuse for weak drafting or for ignoring the issue.
In practice, that means express language stating the couple’s intent to preserve entireties treatment for what they contribute to the trust, requiring both spouses to consent before the trust can be amended or revoked as to that property, and avoiding provisions that would let a deceased spouse’s separate debts be paid from what had been entireties property.
Sometimes direct TBE ownership is the cleaner answer. Sometimes trust ownership better serves the complete plan. Neither choice should happen by accident. Ideally, the account is first established unmistakably as TBE and any later transfer to a joint trust is deliberately documented to preserve the strongest available TBE argument. My spouse and I plan eventually to move our TBE accounts into our joint trust to increase our family’s privacy and avoid probate after both of us have died.
Titling Is Not a Footnote to the Plan – It Is Part of the Plan
A good estate plan determines what happens to your property later. A well-implemented estate plan also pays attention to how the property is owned and protected today. The gap between the signed binder and the actual account title is where expensive surprises live.
If you are a married Florida resident with jointly owned accounts, pull the statements and read the actual registrations. If an account merely says “joint,” do not assume that the brokerage employee clicked the right box or that Florida law will supply the rest. For the full legal and practical discussion, read the Florida TBE Brokerage Account and Asset Protection Guide. To review how your accounts and estate plan fit together, contact Verras Law, P.A..