Property Law Collection

Start Here

What Is Real Property?

A foundational primer on real property: the bundle of rights, the distinction between real and personal property, and the estates and interests that organize American property law.

Types of Property

How American property law classifies property — real and personal, tangible and intangible, and the fixtures and mixed interests that cross the line between them.

Estates in Land

How American property law defines the nature, duration, and extent of a person's legal interest in real property through the doctrine of estates in land.

Fee Simple Ownership

The fee simple absolute as the broadest and most complete estate in American property law, and the defeasible and comparative doctrines that define its limits.

Life Estates

The life estate as a present possessory freehold estate measured by a designated lifetime, together with the rights, duties, and future interests that accompany it.

Future Interests

Future interests as presently existing legal rights to future possession of real property, including reversions, possibilities of reverter, rights of entry, remainders, and executory interests.

Reversions and Remainders

The two most common future interests in American property law: reversions retained by grantors and remainders created in third parties, including the distinction between vested and contingent remainders.

Defeasible Fees

Defeasible fee estates in American property law: fee simple determinable, fee simple subject to condition subsequent, and fee simple subject to executory limitation, and the future interests that accompany each.

Concurrent Ownership

Concurrent ownership as the legal framework in which two or more persons hold present ownership interests in the same real property simultaneously, including tenancy in common, joint tenancy, tenancy by the entirety, and community property.

Easements

Easements as nonpossessory property interests that grant limited legal rights to use another person's land, including appurtenant and in gross easements, affirmative and negative easements, and methods of creation, scope, and termination.

Licenses

Licenses as personal, generally revocable permissions to enter or use another person's land without acquiring a property interest, and their distinction from easements, leases, and other nonpossessory interests.

Covenants and Equitable Servitudes

Real covenants and equitable servitudes as the principal doctrines by which private promises about land use may bind future owners, forming the foundation of modern subdivisions, planned communities, and private land-use regulation.

Adverse Possession

Adverse possession as the doctrine by which title to real property may be acquired through qualifying possession over the statutory period, with strict compliance required for each traditional element.

Deeds

Deeds as the principal legal instrument used to voluntarily transfer interests in real property, and the essential requirements of execution, delivery, and acceptance that govern their validity.

Recording Acts

State recording statutes that govern the public recording of deeds and other real property interests, and the race, notice, and race-notice systems that determine priority among competing claimants.

Chain of Title

The chain of title as the chronological record of ownership and recorded interests affecting real property, and the role of title examination in establishing marketable title.

Title Insurance

Title insurance as an indemnity mechanism protecting purchasers and lenders against certain covered title defects that may remain undiscovered after a title examination.

Mortgages

The mortgage as the principal security instrument by which real property secures repayment of a debt, and its relationship to the promissory note, recording, and real estate finance.

School of Property Law

Estates in land, recording acts, conveyancing, and title.

Advanced Reading