Property Ownership, Interests, and Transfer of Title
Estates and ownership forms
Fee simple absolute is the fullest estate; a life estate ends at death; leaseholds are personal property. Concurrent ownership takes three common shapes: tenancy in common (unequal shares, no survivorship), joint tenancy (equal shares with right of survivorship, severed by conveying one's share), and tenancy by the entirety (not recognized in Alaska). Alaska spouses may instead use an Alaska community property trust to obtain community-property tax treatment.
Interests short of ownership
Easements appurtenant run with the land; easements in gross benefit a person. Easements arise by express grant, implication, necessity, or prescription. Licenses are revocable; liens are security interests; encroachments are physical intrusions.
Transfer of title
Voluntary: deed (statutory warranty or quitclaim), will, dedication. Involuntary: foreclosure, tax sale, condemnation, escheat, adverse possession. Recording protects a later purchaser who takes without notice. Title insurance covers recorded defects, and 'marketable title' is what the contract promises.
Alaska notes
The state and Alaska Native corporations own most Alaska land, so surface, mineral, and subsurface estates are often severed - verify what the seller actually owns. Much of Alaska has no local zoning, and access may be by easement or by air/water only: a 'legal' lot is not always a buildable lot.
Traps
- Creating a joint tenancy with unequal shares.
- Calling a quitclaim deed worthless - it conveys whatever interest the grantor holds.
- Forgetting adverse possession requires open, notorious, hostile, exclusive, continuous use for the statutory period.
Worked example
A and B hold title as joint tenants. A deeds her interest to herself and her son. That conveyance severs the joint tenancy; A, her son, and B now hold as tenants in common.