Real Property Ownership and Estates
The Real Property Ownership and Estates domain tests how rights in land are classified, divided, and transferred over time. Expect questions on fixtures, present and future estates, concurrent ownership, and the consequences of severing a co-tenancy.
Land and fixtures
Real property includes the surface, airspace, subsurface minerals, and improvements. A fixture is personal property that has become part of the realty. Courts weigh annexation, adaptation to the property’s use, and the parties’ intention. Tenants may remove trade fixtures before the lease ends, but ordinary fixtures remain. Growing crops are generally personal property of the tenant who planted them.
Estates and future interests
A fee simple absolute is the largest estate and lasts indefinitely. Fee simple determinable ends automatically on a stated event, leaving a possibility of reverter. Fee simple subject to condition subsequent does not end automatically; the grantor must exercise a right of entry. A fee simple subject to executory limitation shifts title to a third party on the event. A life estate lasts for a measuring life; remainders and reversions follow it. A life tenant may not commit waste.
Concurrent ownership
Tenants in common hold separate undivided shares with no survivorship. Joint tenants hold equal shares with survivorship and require the four unities: time, title, interest, and possession. A joint tenant’s conveyance severs the joint tenancy as to that share. Tenancy by the entirety is a marital estate in many states and generally cannot be severed by one spouse. Community property treats marital acquisitions as shared, with separate-property tracing.
Worked example
O conveys “to B and C as joint tenants with right of survivorship.” B later deeds his interest to D. B’s conveyance severs the joint tenancy as to B’s half. D and C now hold as tenants in common; C’s survivorship right does not apply against D. If C dies, C’s heirs take C’s half, not D.
Traps
“To A and B” is often a tenancy in common, not a joint tenancy. Defeasible estates turn on automatic versus affirmative enforcement. A life tenant’s failure to pay taxes or repair can be waste.