Real Property: Estates, Transfers, and Land Use
Estates and Future Interests
Start with the fee simple absolute, fee tail, life estate, and leasehold. Then the defeasible fees (fee simple determinable, fee simple subject to condition subsequent, fee simple subject to executory limitation) and the future interests (reversion, possibility of reverter, right of entry, executory interest, remainder). The Rule Against Perpetuities invalidates interests that may vest too remotely; know the saving doctrines.
Concurrent Ownership and Landlord-Tenant
Tenancy in common, joint tenancy (four unities), tenancy by the entirety, and community property. Leasehold types: term of years, periodic tenancy, tenancy at will, tenancy at sufferance. Duties to repair, quiet enjoyment, and the implied warranty of habitability.
Transfers and Recording
Deeds require identification, words of grant, description, signature, and delivery. The recording acts: race, notice, and race-notice. Adverse possession requires actual, open, notorious, exclusive, continuous, and hostile possession for the statutory period.
Land Use and Mortgages
Easements (express, implied, prescriptive, by necessity), covenants, equitable servitudes, zoning, and takings. Mortgage priorities and foreclosure.
Traps
The most common trap is the distinction between a fee simple determinable (automatic reverter) and a fee simple subject to condition subsequent (right of entry). Another is the difference between a license and an easement.
Worked Example
O conveys "to A so long as used for a school." A has a fee simple determinable, and O retains a possibility of reverter. If the school closes, title automatically returns to O without any action.