I believe if co-owners acquire a property, and the position is otherwise unknown, there is a rebuttable assumption that they acquire the property as joint owners.
The same principle might be applied where two individuals acquire (by some means or other) an absolute beneficial interest in the whole of a property. I’ve no authority for that but it might be derivable if you need a justification. If H’s will leaves his estate to W then it might make little difference in practice (the half share will be in his estate for IHT anyway, but no tax is payable in any case).
It might help if the wording of the LR consent allows consent to be given by the survivor of them.
Andrew Goodman
Osborne Clarke LLP