Real Property
Scope
Estates, co-tenancy, landlord-tenant, deeds, recording, mortgages, easements, covenants, and adverse possession.
Core rules
- Estates: fee simple absolute, life estate, and future interests; co-tenancy includes joint tenancy with right of survivorship and tenancy in common.
- Recording: Kansas protects a subsequent purchaser who takes without notice; notice may be actual, inquiry, or record. A later purchaser with notice does not prevail merely by recording first.
- Deeds require delivery and acceptance; a deed need not be recorded to bind the parties, but recording protects against later purchasers.
- Easements may be express, implied, prescriptive, or by necessity. Kansas prescriptive period is generally 15 years, consistent with adverse possession under K.S.A. 60-503.
- Landlord-tenant duties and covenants may be statutory or contractual; do not assume every residential lease carries the same implied warranty outside the applicable Kansas act.
Worked example
O conveys Blackacre to A by deed, but A does not record. O then conveys to B, who has actual notice of A. B records. B loses because B is not a good-faith purchaser without notice; actual notice defeats B's protection even though B recorded first.
Traps
Calling Kansas a pure race statute; forgetting inquiry notice; treating unrecorded deeds as void between the parties; and assuming a life tenant may commit waste without liability.