Property Law Comprehensive Review

A set of vocabulary-style flashcards based on lecture notes covering property law foundations, acquisition, ownership forms, and land-use regulations.

Trespass

Any intentional intrusion that deprives another of possession of land, even if only temporarily, where the only intent required is the desire to enter the land.

Nuisance

A private nuisance exists when a landowner’s use of their property unreasonably interferes with another’s use and enjoyment of their land, typically determined by a utilitarian balancing test.

Right to Exclude

A fundamental property right allowing owners to control access and decide who can enter, stay, or use their land, though it may yield to public policy or statutory rights.

Coase Theorem

A principle that prioritizes what is best for society, focusing on achieving the highest value and best use of the land.

First Possession

The principle of 'first in time,' referring to being the first person to possess something that is unclaimed by anyone else.

Rule of Capture

A rule stating that certain natural resources (fugitive in nature like wild animals, oil, and gas) are not owned by anyone until someone actually takes possession of them.

Superior Title

A legal hierarchy for property ownership: True Owner > Finder $1$ > Finder $2$ > Thief $1$ > Thief $2$ > Rest of the world.

Labor Theory

A framework evaluating ownership based on how much value has increased, considering the taker's good faith vs. theft and the ratio of input value v. finished product value.

Abandoned Property

Property that the owner voluntarily relinquished with no intent to reclaim; a finder of such property acquires good title.

Lost Property

Property where the owner unintentionally parted with possession; legal outcomes often favor the finder over the owner of the premises.

Accession

An owner of a primary resource claiming ownership of a related subordinate resource (e.g., the owner of a tree owns its fruits).

Doctrine of Emblements

A doctrine that prevents landlords from taking a tenant's harvest by allowing the tenant back onto the land to harvest crops if their tenancy is terminated.

Ad Coelum Principle

The traditional rule that a landowner owns the airspace above their land and the subsurface below it, limited to what they can reasonably use.

Fixture

An item of personal property that becomes part of real property based on its physical annexation, adaptation to the land's use, and the objective intent of the party.

Avulsion

The rapid, perceptible loss or addition of land caused by natural forces (like a flood) which typically does not change legal boundaries.

Adverse Possession

A method of acquiring title through actual, exclusive, open and notorious, continuous, and adverse occupancy for a specific statutory period.

Color of Title

A claim to ownership based on a written instrument, such as a deed or will, that appears valid but is legally defective.

Claim of Right

A claim to ownership based on a person’s assertion that the property is theirs based on conduct, without requiring a written document.

Tacking

The joining of consecutive periods of possession by different persons to satisfy the continuous statutory period required for adverse possession.

Conversion

An intentional exercise of dominion or control over a chattel that so seriously interferes with another's right of control that the actor may be required to pay its full value.

Public Trust Doctrine

A doctrine preventing the legislature from granting private corporation title to submerged lands that are held in trust for the public.

Riparian Rights

A system (common in the East) where the right to use water automatically belongs to those whose land is adjacent to the water source.

Prior Use (Prior Appropriation)

A system (common in the West) based on 'first in time, first in right,' where the first person to put water to beneficial use gains a seniority right to that quantity.

Ejectment

A civil action used to vindicate the interest of a person with title to land against a person who is wrongfully in possession.

Trover

A civil action used to allege that a defendant wrongfully converted the plaintiff’s goods for their own use.

Trespass to Chattels

An intentional interference with the possession of personal property that causes actual injury to the property or dispossesses the owner.

Fee Simple Determinable

A fee simple that ends automatically if a specified condition is no longer satisfied, leaving the grantor with a 'possibility of reverter.'

Fee Simple Subject to Condition Subsequent

A fee simple where the grantor retains a 'right of entry' or 'power of termination' to re-take the premises if a condition is broken.

Executory Interest

A future interest in a transferee (not the grantor) that divests or cuts short a previous interest rather than waiting for its natural end.

Rule Against Perpetuities (RAP)

A rule against interests vesting too remotely, requiring that an interest must vest (if at all) no later than $21$ years after some life in being at the time of the interest's creation.

Affirmative Waste

Occurs when a life tenant or lessee undertakes an unreasonable affirmative act on property that causes excess damage to the reversionary or remainder interest.

Ameliorative Waste

An affirmative act by a tenant that significantly changes a property resulting in an increase in market value; it is traditionally not permitted under the minority view.

Tenancy in Common (TIC)

A form of co-ownership where each tenant has a separate but undivided interest that is independently descendible and has no right of survivorship.

Joint Tenancy

Co-ownership requiring the four unities (Time, Title, Interest, Possession) and characterized by the right of survivorship.

Tenancy by the Entirety

A form of co-ownership available only to married couples requiring five unities, where neither spouse can unilaterally sever the tenancy.

Partition in Kind

A legal remedy where a court physically divides property and assigns co-owners specific 'zones' proportional to their ownership shares.

Partition by Sale

A forced sale of entire property where the proceeds are divided among co-owners; used when physical division is impracticable or inequitable.

Bailment

A relationship created when an owner (bailor) temporarily transfers custody of property to another (bailee) for a specific purpose.

Term of Years

A lease with a fixed time at which it terminates, such as six months or one year.

Periodic Tenancy

A lease that automatically rolls over for a stated period of time until one party gives notice to terminate.

Implied Warranty of Habitability (IWH)

A residential lease term requiring the landlord to maintain the premises in a livable condition.

Assignment

The full transfer of a tenant's existing leasehold interest to another party.

Sublease

A transaction where a tenant leases all or part of a property to a third party, creating a new lease and maintaining the original tenant's relationship with the landlord.

Privity of Estate

A legal relationship between parties whose interests in land are directly 'nested' or where one is carved out of the other.

Privity of Contract

Obligations arising specifically from being a party to a binding bilateral contract, such as a lease agreement.

Novation

An agreement between parties to erase any privity of contract liability on the part of the original lessee, typically substituted by a new tenant.

Easement

A nonpossessory right to use another person's land for a limited, designated purpose.

Profit a Prendre

A right to enter the land of another specifically to extract something of value, like timber, fish, or minerals.

Easement Appurtenant

An easement that attaches to and benefits a specific parcel of land (the dominant tract) and burdens another (the servient tract).

Prescriptive Easement

An easement acquired through adverse, open, notorious, and continuous use for a specific jurisdictional period.