Property, Real Estate, and Secured Transactions
Estates and Ownership
Understand the estates system: fee simple absolute, defeasible fees, life estates, and future interests. Distinguish joint tenancy (with right of survivorship and four unities) from tenancy in common and tenancy by the entirety. Know the rules for fixtures and for adverse possession, including the statutory period, actual, open, notorious, exclusive, continuous, and hostile elements.
Transfers and Real Estate
Study the Statute of Frauds for land, the deed requirements (writing, signature, delivery, description), recording statutes (race, notice, race-notice), and the distinction between title and lien theory. Understand mortgage priority, foreclosure, and the difference between a mortgage and a deed of trust. Know landlord-tenant basics: leasehold types, covenants, and constructive eviction.
Secured Transactions
Master attachment (value, debtor rights, security agreement) and perfection (filing, possession, control, automatic). Understand the priority rules, including purchase-money security interests and the first-to-file-or-perfect rule, and the treatment of proceeds and after-acquired property. Know the consequence of default and the requirement of commercially reasonable disposition.
Traps and Rule of Thumb
Traps: confusing attachment with perfection; assuming a filing perfects all collateral types; overlooking the PMSI super-priority. Rule of thumb: attachment creates enforceability against the debtor; perfection creates priority against third parties.