Real Property Law and Principles
This domain tests how North Carolina treats land, fixtures, and the rights that burden or benefit real estate. Expect questions on the real-property/personal-property line, easements, encroachments, and liens rather than on memorized definitions alone.
Core rules
- Real property includes land, improvements, and things permanently attached; personal property remains movable. Fixture analysis weighs annexation, adaptation, and intention. Trade fixtures installed by a tenant generally remain the tenant's property if removable without material damage.
- An easement appurtenant benefits a dominant parcel and runs with it; an easement in gross benefits a person or entity. A license is revocable permission, not an interest. A prescriptive easement requires actual, open, adverse, continuous use for the statutory period, commonly 20 years in North Carolina.
- Liens include property tax liens, judgment liens, and mechanic's liens. Priority usually depends on recording and statutory rules.
- Air, surface, and mineral rights may be severed; North Carolina requires disclosure of mineral, oil, and gas rights in residential transactions.
Worked example
A tenant bolts heavy shelving into a warehouse floor. The lease says removable trade fixtures stay the tenant's. The shelving is adapted to the tenant's business and can be removed without structural damage, so it is likely a tenant trade fixture. If the shelving were custom-built into the wall, intention and damage would point to the landlord.
Traps that cost marks
Calling every attachment a fixture; treating a license as an easement; assuming an easement is lost by mere nonuse; and ignoring that an encroachment does not automatically transfer title. Read whether the right benefits a parcel or a person before choosing appurtenant or in gross.