Real Property
Real Property tests estates, future interests, concurrent ownership, landlord-tenant, easements, covenants, mortgages, and recording. The bar favors classification questions: name the estate correctly and the consequences follow.
Core rules
- Fee simple absolute is the default; life estates and remainders are measured by words of duration.
- A remainder must be created in the same instrument as the life estate; a future interest in the grantor is a reversion or possibility of reverter.
- Tenants in common have separate undivided shares; joint tenants have right of survivorship.
- A notice recording statute protects a subsequent purchaser without notice; race-notice requires recording first and no notice.
Worked example
O conveys Blackacre to A, who does not record. O then conveys to B, who knows of A and records first. Reasoning: In a notice state, B loses because B had actual notice of A. In a race-notice state, B also loses because B had notice when B purchased, even though B recorded first. In a pure race state, B wins because B recorded first, regardless of notice. The result turns on the statute's text, not on who paid first.
Traps
- Calling a remainder executory interest; the distinction affects vesting and the Rule Against Perpetuities.
- Forgetting that a joint tenant's conveyance severs the joint tenancy as to that share.
- Confusing an easement appurtenant with an easement in gross.
- Missing that a mortgage follows the note, not the property.