Property Law
This domain tests estates and future interests, landlord-tenant, concurrent ownership, servitudes, adverse possession, and recording.
Estates and future interests
Fee simple absolute; life estate; fee simple determinable with possibility of reverter; fee simple subject to condition subsequent with right of entry; fee simple subject to executory limitation with shifting executory interest. The Rule Against Perpetuities voids interests that may vest beyond lives in being plus twenty-one years; identify a validating life.
Concurrent ownership
Joint tenancy needs the four unities (time, title, interest, possession) plus survivorship; severance destroys survivorship. Tenancy by the entirety requires a married couple. Tenancy in common carries no survivorship.
Servitudes
Easements may be express, implied, by necessity, or prescriptive; distinguish appurtenant from in gross. Real covenants require writing, intent, touch and concern, and privity; equitable servitudes substitute notice and injunctive relief for privity and damages.
Worked example
O conveys Blackacre to A, who does not record, then conveys to B. B has actually seen A in possession and heard neighbors discuss A's deed. In a race-notice or notice jurisdiction, B's actual and inquiry notice defeats B's later recording; A prevails.
Traps
- Confusing vested remainders with executory interests under the Rule.
- Forgetting that joint tenancy requires all four unities.
- Treating a license as an easement.
- Missing that a shelter rule protects a transferee from a protected purchaser.