Real Property Characteristics, Ownership, and Estates
What makes property "real"
Real property is land plus anything permanently attached to it, together with the bundle of rights (surface, subsurface, air, and water rights). Personal property becomes a fixture when the parties intend it to be part of the realty. The classic test is MARIA: Method of annexation, Adaptability to the property's use, Relationship of the parties (tenant vs. owner), and Intent - and intent controls. Trade fixtures installed by a commercial tenant stay removable; emblements (annual crops) belong to the tenant who planted them.
Learn the water and boundary terms: accretion and reliction (gradual, owner gains or loses), erosion (gradual loss), and avulsion (sudden, boundary unchanged). Mineral and air rights may be severed and sold separately.
Freehold vs. leasehold estates
Freehold estates last indefinitely or for a lifetime: fee simple absolute, fee simple determinable (with possibility of reverter), fee simple subject to a condition subsequent (with right of entry), fee simple subject to an executory limitation, and life estates (including pur autre vie, with remainder or reversion). Leasehold estates are the estate for years, periodic tenancy, tenancy at will, and tenancy at sufferance. A life tenant may not commit waste and must keep taxes, interest, and ordinary repairs current.
Forms of co-ownership
Tenancy in common (unequal shares, no survivorship); joint tenancy (four unities - time, title, interest, possession - plus survivorship); tenancy by the entirety (available to married couples); severalty; and ownership by trust or entity.
Traps: questions love to mix up right of entry with possibility of reverter, and to suggest a joint tenant can will away her share (she cannot). A lease is personal property in most contexts. Rule of thumb: first name the estate, then name who holds the future interest.