Property Law: Comprehensive Vocabulary and Rules

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering the core common law concepts, estates in land, concurrent ownership, landlord-tenant law, conveyancing, servitudes, and public land use controls from Property: Examples & Explanations (Sixth Edition).

Real Property

Land and the permanent improvements attached to the land, such as buildings, fences, and dams.

Personal Property

All property other than real property, comprising tangible goods (such as automobiles, books, and jewelry) and intangible assets (such as stocks, bonds, patents, and contract rights).

Fixture

A hybrid form of chattel or personal property that, while retaining a separate identity, is annexed, adapted, and intended to be permanently attached to real property so as to be considered part of the realty.

Possession

The controlling or holding of personal or real property, consisting of two essential elements: (1) an intent to possess on the part of the possessor, and (2) actual control or holding of the property.

Relativity of Title

The common law doctrine that a person can have a relatively better title or right to possession than another, while simultaneously having an inferior right compared to a third party.

Rule of Capture

A rule of first possession establishing that wild animals or natural resources belong to the first person who kills, captures, or otherwise acquires actual physical possession or control over them.

Constructive Possession

A legal fiction treating a person as being in actual legal possession of an item or land, even though the person does not have physical custody in fact.

Ratione Soli

A Latin phrase meaning 'on account of the soil,' referring to a landowner's constructive possession of wild animals naturally located on their own land, providing the exclusive right to hunt them there.

Animus Revertendi

The doctrine that a person does not lose ownership of an escaped animal that has the habit of returning to its owner's property.

Riparian Doctrine

The water law system in water-rich states granting owners of land abutting a natural watercourse the right to make reasonable use of the water for their abutting land.

Prior Appropriation Doctrine

The water law system, primarily in western states, establishing that the first person to divert water and put it to beneficial use acquires a vested, prioritized right to continue that use.

Conversion

The common law tort committed when a person wrongfully exerts dominion and control over personal property in a manner inconsistent with the true owner's or rightful possessor's rights.

Replevin

A legal action or remedy brought by a true owner or rightful possessor to recover possession of the specific personal property itself, along with damages for any injury to the property.

Trover

A common law action seeking monetary compensation equal to the fair market value of converted personal property, operating functionally as a forced judicial sale of the chattel.

Subrogation

The substitution or succession of one person into the legal rights or claims of another, such as when a converter pays a full judgment for trover to the true owner and acquires the true owner's prior rights.

Lost Property

Property that the true owner unintentionally and unknowingly dropped or parted with, which belongs to the finder against all the world except the true owner.

Mislaid Property

Property that the true owner intentionally placed in a given location and subsequently forgot or left behind, which belongs to the owner or occupier of the premises (locus in quo) against all but the true owner.

Abandoned Property

Property that the true owner voluntarily and intentionally relinquished with no intent to reclaim or transfer ownership to a specific person, which belongs entirely to the first finder who reduces it to possession.

Treasure Trove

Gold, silver, or currency intentionally hidden or concealed underground or in secret places, showing indications of antiquity such that the true owner is dead or unknown.

Bailment

The transfer and delivery of possession of personal property by an owner or prior possessor (the bailor) to another (the bailee) for a limited purpose, with the requirement to redeliver the property in substantially the same condition.

Misdelivery (Bailments)

The delivery of bailed property by a bailee to an unauthorized person, for which the bailee is traditionally held strictly liable in tort.

Bona Fide Purchaser (BFP)

A person who purchases property honestly, pays valuable consideration, and takes without notice (actual, constructive, or inquiry) of any conflicting claim or defect in title.

Void Title vs. Voidable Title

Void title means no title (such as that acquired by a thief), which cannot transfer good title to anyone; voidable title exists when an owner is induced by fraud to part with title, giving the wrongdoer power to transfer good title to a BFP.

Entrustment (UCC §2-403)

The statutory delivery or acquiescence in retention of goods to a merchant dealing in goods of that kind, granting the merchant the power to transfer all rights of the entruster to a buyer in the ordinary course of business.

Inter Vivos Gift

An irrevocable, voluntary, gratuitous transfer of property between living persons, requiring donative intent, delivery (actual, constructive, or symbolic), and acceptance.

Gift Causa Mortis

A revocable gift made in contemplation or apprehension of the donor's impending death, taking effect immediately but becoming absolute only upon death from the anticipated peril.

Adverse Possession

A statutory and common law doctrine whereby an occupant who is not the record owner gains original legal title by possessing real property in an actual, open and notorious, exclusive, hostile, and continuous manner for the statutory limitations period.

Color of Title

A claim to title based on a written instrument (such as a defective deed or tax sale deed) that appears valid on its face but is legally defective, granting constructive possession of the entire described tract.

Tacking (Adverse Possession)

The joining of consecutive periods of adverse possession by successive occupants who share privity of estate through contract, deed, gift, will, or intestate succession.

Tolling

The temporary suspension of the running of the adverse possession statute of limitations, typically caused by a legal disability (such as minority, insanity, or imprisonment) existing at the time of the adverse possessor's initial entry.

Fee Simple Absolute

The greatest possible estate in land, having potentially infinite or perpetual duration, and being fully alienable, devisable, and descendible.

Words of Purchase vs. Words of Limitation

Words of purchase identify who takes the estate (e.g., 'to $A$'), whereas words of limitation describe the type or duration of the estate granted (e.g., 'and his heirs' or 'for life').

Life Estate

A freehold estate whose duration is measured by the life of the tenant or by the life of another designated person ($pur\,autre\,vie$).

Reversion

A future interest retained by a grantor when transferring a possessory estate of lesser duration than the estate the grantor holds, becoming possessory upon the natural termination of the preceding estate.

Remainder

A future interest created in a third party in the same instrument as a preceding freehold estate (such as a life estate), capable of taking effect in possession immediately upon the natural termination of the prior estate.

Vested Remainder

A remainder given to an ascertained person that is not subject to any condition precedent (other than the natural termination of the preceding estate).

Contingent Remainder

A remainder created in an unascertained person or subject to a condition precedent that must occur before the interest can vest.

Executory Interest

A future interest created in a third party that takes effect by divesting or cutting short a prior possessory estate (shifting) or a grantor's retained estate (springing).

Fee Simple Determinable

A defeasible fee simple estate that automatically terminates upon the occurrence of a specified event or condition subsequent, leaving a possibility of reverter in the grantor.

Possibility of Reverter

The future interest retained by a grantor following the creation of a fee simple determinable, which automatically becomes possessory if the determinative event occurs.

Fee Simple Subject to a Condition Subsequent

A defeasible fee simple estate that does not end automatically, but reserves in the grantor the power of termination or right of entry upon the occurrence of a specified condition subsequent.

Right of Entry

The future interest retained by a grantor following the creation of a fee simple subject to a condition subsequent, requiring an affirmative exercise of reentry to terminate the grantee's estate.

Fee Simple Subject to an Executory Limitation

A defeasible fee simple estate that, upon the occurrence of a stated event, automatically terminates and divests in favor of a third party holding an executory interest.

Waste

The unauthorized abuse, alteration, destruction, or neglect of real property by a present tenant (such as a life tenant or lessee) that causes permanent injury to the future interest holder's or landlord's estate.

Open Mines Doctrine

A rule of property law permitting a life tenant to continue mining and extracting natural resources from mines or wells that were already opened and operating prior to the creation of the life tenancy.

Rule of Destructibility of Contingent Remainders

The common law rule providing that a legal contingent remainder in real property is destroyed if it fails to vest at or before the natural termination of all preceding freehold estates.

Merger Rule

The property doctrine providing that when a person holds a vested present life estate and subsequently acquires the immediately next vested future estate in the same parcel, the two vested estates merge into a fee simple, destroying any intervening contingent remainder.

Rule in Shelley's Case

The common law rule transforming a grant of a freehold estate to a person with a remainder in the same instrument to that person's 'heirs' into a remainder in the person himself, merging into a fee simple absolute if no intervening estate exists.

Doctrine of Worthier Title

The doctrine providing that an inter vivos conveyance to a grantee with a remainder or limitation over to the grantor's own 'heirs' creates no interest in the heirs, but retains a reversion in the grantor.

Rule Against Perpetuities (RAP)

The rule declaring that no interest is good unless it must vest, if at all, not later than twenty-one years after some life in being at the creation of the interest.

Rule of Convenience

A class closing rule dictating that a class of beneficiaries closes as soon as any member of the class is entitled to demand possession or immediate distribution of their share.

Tenancy in Common

The default form of concurrent ownership where two or more persons hold separate and distinct undivided fractional shares with equal rights to possess the entire property and without a right of survivorship.

Joint Tenancy with Right of Survivorship

A form of concurrent ownership characterized by the four unities (time, title, interest, and possession) and the right of survivorship, whereby the interest of a deceased tenant ceases and automatically vests in the surviving joint tenants.

Severance

The destruction of one or more of the four unities of a joint tenancy (such as by an inter vivos conveyance of an interest to a third party), converting that interest into a tenancy in common.

Tenancy by the Entirety

A form of concurrent ownership between married spouses requiring the four unities plus the fifth unity of marriage, carrying a right of survivorship and immune to unilateral severance or partition by one spouse.

Ouster

The wrongful or forceful exclusion of a co-tenant from the possession and enjoyment of co-owned property, which entitles the ousted co-tenant to fair rental value and triggers the statute of limitations for adverse possession.

Owelty

An equitable financial payment ordered by a court to equalize the unequal distribution of property values among co-tenants resulting from a physical partition in kind.

Partition in Kind vs. Partition by Sale

Partition in kind is the favored equitable remedy dividing real property physically into separate parcels; partition by sale orders the entire property sold at auction and the net proceeds divided among the co-tenants.

Dower

The common law provision granting a surviving widow a life estate in one-third of all freehold real property of which her husband was solely and beneficially seised in fee simple at any time during the marriage.

Curtesy

The common law estate granting a surviving widower a life estate in all of his deceased wife's inheritable lands, conditioned upon the birth of issue alive during the marriage.

Elective Share

A statutory provision permitting a surviving spouse to choose between taking under the deceased spouse's will or claiming a fixed statutory percentage (usually one-third or one-half) of the decedent's augmented probate estate.

Community Property

A statutory marital property system treating the marital unit as a partnership wherein all earnings and property acquired by either spouse during the marriage (except gifts and inheritances) are owned equally by both spouses.

Term of Years

A nonfreehold leasehold estate that continues for a fixed, definite period of time with specific beginning and ending calendar dates, terminating automatically without required notice.

Periodic Tenancy

A leasehold estate continuing for successive periods (such as month to month or year to year) until terminated by proper advance notice from either the landlord or the tenant.

Tenancy at Will

A leasehold estate that endures only as long as both landlord and tenant desire, terminable at the will of either party without a fixed term.

Tenancy at Sufferance

A wrongful possession arising when a tenant who entered rightfully holds over after the expiration of the lease term, allowing the landlord to treat the occupant as a trespasser or hold them to a renewed lease.

English Rule vs. American Rule (Delivery of Possession)

The English Rule obligates the landlord to deliver both legal and actual physical possession of the premises at lease commencement; the American Rule requires the landlord to deliver only the legal right to possession.

Assignment vs. Sublease (Traditional Rule)

An assignment is a transfer of the tenant's entire unexpired leasehold term, establishing privity of estate between the landlord and assignee; a sublease is a transfer of less than the full unexpired term, retaining a reversion in the sublessor.

Privity of Contract vs. Privity of Estate

Privity of contract arises from the direct agreement between contracting parties; privity of estate arises from a mutual and simultaneous ownership interest in the same land (such as between landlord and tenant, or landlord and assignee).

Rule of Dumpor's Case

The rule establishing that once a landlord consents to an assignment under a lease covenant requiring landlord consent, the consent requirement is permanently waived for all future assignments unless specifically reserved.

Constructive Eviction

The doctrine providing that when a landlord breaches a duty (such as quiet enjoyment) by substantially interfering with the tenant's use and enjoyment of the premises, the tenant is justified in vacating and is relieved of paying future rent.

Implied Warranty of Habitability

An implied, nonwaivable covenant in residential leases obligating the landlord to maintain safe, clean, and physically fit living premises meeting housing code standards throughout the lease term.

Retaliatory Eviction

A tenant's affirmative defense prohibiting a landlord from evicting, decreasing services to, or raising the rent of a tenant primarily in retaliation for the tenant exercising legal rights, such as reporting housing code violations.

Marketable Title

A title free from reasonable doubt as to its validity that a prudent purchaser, well informed of the facts, would accept, and which is reasonably free of the prospect of litigation or undisclosed encumbrances.

Caveat Emptor

The traditional common law doctrine meaning 'let the buyer beware,' imposing no affirmative duty on the seller to disclose physical defects unless there is active concealment or fraudulent misrepresentation.

Equitable Conversion

The doctrine that upon the execution of a binding real estate sales contract, equitable title passes to the purchaser (treated as real property), while legal title remains with the seller (treated as personal property).

General Warranty Deed

A deed wherein the grantor warrants against all title defects and encumbrances, whether arising before or during the grantor's period of ownership, except those expressly excluded in the deed.

Special Warranty Deed

A deed wherein the grantor warrants only against title defects and encumbrances created by or arising through the grantor's own acts, and not those arising prior to the grantor's ownership.

Quitclaim Deed

A deed conveying whatever right, title, or interest the grantor may hold in the property, without any warranties or covenants of title.

Present Covenants of Title

Deed covenants (seisin, right to convey, and against encumbrances) that are breached, if ever, at the moment the deed is delivered, and traditionally do not run with the land.

Future Covenants of Title

Deed covenants (warranty, quiet enjoyment, and further assurances) that run with the land to remote grantees and are breached only when a paramount title holder evicts or interferes with the grantee's possession.

Estoppel by Deed

The doctrine of after-acquired title providing that if a grantor conveys property by warranty deed that he does not own, the title subsequently acquired by the grantor automatically shoots through and inures to the grantee.

Race Recording Statute

A recording statute under which the first purchaser to properly record their conveyance in the county land records wins, regardless of whether they had notice of a prior unrecorded transfer.

Notice Recording Statute

A recording statute under which a subsequent bona fide purchaser for value who takes without notice (actual, constructive, or inquiry) of a prior unrecorded conveyance prevails, regardless of who records first.

Race-Notice Recording Statute

A recording statute under which a subsequent purchaser for value prevails over a prior unrecorded conveyance only if the subsequent purchaser takes without notice AND records first.

Wild Deed

A recorded deed that is disconnected from the chain of title because an intervening grantor's deed was unrecorded, failing to impart constructive notice to subsequent purchasers.

Shelter Rule

The property doctrine allowing a person who takes an interest from a bona fide purchaser protected by the recording act to claim the same priority and protection as the BFP, even if the transferee had notice.

Private Nuisance

A substantial and unreasonable nontrespassory interference with another person's use and enjoyment of their land.

Lateral and Subjacent Support

The natural rights of a landowner to have their land supported from the sides (lateral support) and from underneath (subjacent support), imposing strict liability if excavating or mining causes unsupported land in its natural state to subside.

Easement Appurtenant

An easement created to benefit the owner or possessor of a particular parcel of land (the dominant estate) over a burdened parcel (the servient estate), running with the land.

Easement in Gross

An easement that benefits an individual personally, independently of any ownership or possession of a dominant parcel of land.

Profit à Prendre

A nonpossessory property interest granting the holder the right to enter another's land and remove soil, gravel, minerals, timber, fish, or wild game from the land.

Easement Implied from Prior Use

An implied easement created when a common owner severs land on which a prior, apparent, continuous, and reasonably necessary use existed on one parcel for the benefit of the other prior to severance.

Easement Implied by Necessity

An implied right-of-way easement arising when a common grantor severs land in a manner that leaves one parcel completely landlocked, requiring strict necessity for egress and ingress.

Prescriptive Easement

An easement acquired by long-continued actual, open, notorious, continuous, and adverse (hostile) use of another's land for the statutory prescriptive period.

Horizontal Privity and Vertical Privity

Horizontal privity denotes the relationship between original covenanting parties at the conveyance of an estate in land; vertical privity denotes the relationship between an original covenanting party and a subsequent successor who acquires the same estate.

Touch and Concern

The requirement that a covenant must directly relate to the use, operation, or value of the affected land, altering the legal rights of the parties as landowners.

Equitable Servitude

A covenant or land-use restriction enforceable in equity by injunction against subsequent purchasers of the burdened land who took with notice, requiring intent to bind and that the restriction touches and concerns the land.

Common Scheme of Development

A general plan of uniform restrictions established by a common developer across a subdivision, allowing earlier and later lot buyers reciprocal standing to enforce implied equitable servitudes.

Variance

An administrative waiver granted by a board of zoning adjustment relieving a specific parcel from strict compliance with zoning standards due to unique physical conditions causing unnecessary hardship (use variance) or practical difficulties (area variance).