Chapter 1: Property Ownership And Land Use Controls And Regulations Flashcards
The right to possess and use property includes the right to:
- Occupy
- Sell or dispose
- Encumber
- Lease the property
What are the primary categories of classes of property:
Real Estate/Real Property
Personal Property
Real estate is sometimes called:
Real property
Personal property is sometimes called:
Chattel
What is hypothecation?
Taking out a loan using your real or personal property as collateral.
Explanation: When you use property as collateral for a loan while the owner retains ownership of the property.
What are the physical components of real estate?
- Land
- Anything affixed to land, such as a fixture
- Anything appurtenances to the land
- Anything which cannot be removed from the land by law.
What is the fixture test?
M= Method of attachment
A= Agreement of the parties
R= Relationship of the parties
I= Intention of the parties
A= Adaptability of the fixture
Land includes:
- Soil
- Rocks
- Other materials of the earth
- Reasonable airspace above the earth
What type of roof is this?
Single Dormers
What type of roof is this?
Shed Dormer/ Dustpan
What type of roof is this?
Gambrel
What type of roof is this?
Gable
What type of roof is this?
Mansard
What type of roof is this?
Hip
What type of roof is this?
Pyramid
What type of roof is this?
Flat
What is an easement?
The right to enter or use another’s land as an encumberance on their title.
In an easement, who is the dominant tenement?
The party who benefits from the easement.
In an easement, who is the servient tenement?
The party who is burdened by the easement.
Easements are classified as:
- Prescriptive
- Appurtenant
- In Gross
What is a prescriptive easement?
A right of access to another’s property gained through use.
What is an appurtenant easement?
Give an example.
The right to cross or use a property which runs with the property as an interest held in the burdened real estate.
For example, a buyer of real estate in which the seller possessed a dominant tenancy would gain that same right over the servient property when eithe rproperty is transferred.
What is an in gross easement?
Belongs to an individual, not land, as their personal right in the burdened real estate, generally appled to a utility company.
What are some types of encumbrances?
Easements
Liens
Encroachments
Restrictions
What are trade fixtures?
- Equipment or fixtures that are used to render services or make products for the trade or business of a tenant.
- Trade fixtures are always personal prpoperty.
What are improvements?
Structures built upon land, including residential and commerical properties.
What do land improvements consist of?
foundations, framing, roofing.
What are liens?
Interests in real estate which secure payment or performance of a debt or other monetary obligation.
What are two examples of liens?
- A trust deed loan
- Local property taxes
A lien always has a dollar value. Further, a lien can be:
- Voluntary (debt)
- Involuntary (property tax, mechanic’s lien) placed against a specific property
- General (judgment, income tax) filed against the individual and appplied to real estate owned by them in the county where the lien is recorded.
What is an encroachment?
A trespass upon a neighbor’s property.
What are deed restrictions?
Restrictions created by deed or by written agreement, such as conditions, covenants and restrictions (CC&R’s) in a community government by homeowners’ association (HOA).
What are estates?
Ownership interests a person may hold in real estate.
Estates are classified as:
- Fee estates
- Life estates
- Periodic tenancy
- Estate for years
- Estate at sufferance
- Estate at will
What is a fee estate?
Sometimes referred to as inheritance or perpetual estates. The owner of a freehold estate owns the fee title to a parcel of real estate. Fee title properties are held in perpetuity,
What is a life estate?
Life estate properties are held for a finite period of time.
When a life estate ends, the interest in the property is either:
Returend to the original owner; or
Transferred to another party.
What is a reversionary right?
It is when the interest in property is returned to the original owner upon the end of the life estate.
What is a remainder interest?
When interest in property is transferred to another party upon the end of the life estate.
What are leasehold estates?
Estates classified as less-than-freehold.
A leashold estate comes in the following agreements:
Periodic tenancy
Estate for years
Estate at sufferance
Estate at will
What is a periodic tenancy?
A leashold estate such as a month-to-month rental.
What is an estate for years?
leasehold estate such as a lease with a fixed term and termination date.
What is an estate at sufferance?
A leashold estate such as a tenant’s holdover of a property beyond the expiration of a lease.
What is an estate at will?
A leasehold estate such as a tenant’s continued occupancy beyond the lease term.
Facts about a condominium?
- A legal form of ownership rather than a building design.
- Any space that can be defined by an engineer can be made into a condominium.
- Ownership of a condominium is defined as air space.
- Condominium properties generally contain a shared common area.
What is a planned unit of development (PUD)?
May be a gated community or include a recreation center.
The parties to a lease are:
- lessor, the owner of the real estate; and
- lessee, the tenant.
What is a gross lease?
A lease in which the rental amount includes all property expenses.
What is a Net lease?
A lease in which the tenant will be obligated to pay cerain property expenses such as taxes, insurance and maintenance.
What is a percentage lease?
Under a percentage lease, the rental payments will equal portion to the sales or income generated by the business.
A lease in excess of how many years must be in writing to be enforceable?
A lease in excess of one year.
What are the items that must be stated in a written lease?
- termination date
- rental amount
- name of the parties involved
- a description of the property.
Written leases must be signed by who to be enforceable?
A written lease must be signed by the lessor (the owner of the real estate)
A copy of the signed lease must be given to the lessee within how many days?
15 days
Agricultural leases cannot exceed how many years?
51 years
Urban leases are limited to how many years?
99 years
Transfer of a lease may occur by:
- sublease
- assignment of the lease
What is a sublease?
When the original lessee retains an interest in the lease and is responsible for the rental payment while the right of possession is given to another.
What is an assignment of the lease?
All rights and possession are transferred to a new tenant.
What ia a surrender?
When the tenant relinquishes possession by mutual agreement with the owner.
What is abandonment?
When the tenant relinquishes possession with no intent of returning and without the agreement of the owner.
What is the limit for a security deposit for a residential rental for a furnished apartment and an unfurnished apartment?
- two months rent for unfurnished apartment .
- three months rent for furnished apartment.
What are the ways in which specific property may be described?
- metes and bounds
- lot, block, tract (based on a recorded subdivision map)
- government survey broken into a series of sections and townships.
What is metes and bounds?
A way in which propery is described. Sets forth all the boundary lines together (boundaries) description is generally used when a great deal of accuracy is required.
What is lot, block, tract?
A way to desribe property. It is based on a recorded subdivision map.
What is a government survey?
It is used to describe property. It is broken into a series of sections and townships.
How many baseline and meridian systems are there in California?
3
What are the three basline and meridian systems in California?
- Humboldt (north)
- Mt. Diablo (central)
- San Bernardino (south)
What are the four main constitutional powers given to the govnerment?
- Police power
- power of eminent domain
- power to tax
- escheat
What is police power?
The California Constitution confers an equal power to local cities and counties to protect the public good.
Police power is the basis for laws governing such things as highway construction and maintenance, rent control, zoning and traffic.
What is eminent domain?
The right of the government to take private property for public use but must pay the owner of the property the fair market value (FMV).
What is condemnation?
THe process of using the power of eminent domain.
What are some examples of eminent domain?`
- to provide highways and roads
- establish parks
- construct food control levees
- provide land for redevelopment
What is escheat?
- Occurs when property reverts to the state government when someone dies with no will or heirs.
- Only the state government may acquire property through escheat, never an individual.
How does the government control real estate development?
Through zoning and building codes.
New construction is built in conformance with ______.
public controls
Public controls are enacted through:
- state codes and regulations
- zoning ordinances
- local general and master plans
- building codes
Who administers the Subdivision Lands Law?
The Real Estate Commissioner
What does the Subdivision Lands Law do?
It protects buyers from misrepresentation or fraud in the initial sale of a subdivided property of 160 acres or less.
What does a subdivision include?
- land;
- common interest developments (CIDs); and
- timeshare projects.
A subdivision cannot be sold in California until the real estate Commissioner issues what?
A public report to be made available to buyers. The public report provides critical disclosures and information.
What does a public report provide about a subdivision?
Cirtical disclosures and information.
What is the Subdivision Map Act?
A California subdivision law setting forth the conditions for approval of a subdivision map and requiring enactment of subdivision ordinances under which local governments control the types of subdivision projects which may be undertaken and the physical improvements to be installed in an area.
What are the court procedures and judicial actions that relate to public controls?
- Quiet title action
- Probate
- Adverse possession
- intestate succession
- execution sale
What is a quiet title action?
A judicial action which clears a cloud from a property’s title, also known as perfecting the title/
What is probate?
A judicial proceeding to satisfy debt and properly distribute assets after a property owner’s death.
What is adverse possession?
A method of acquiring title to real property through possession of the property by a person other than the owner of record for a period of five years in an open notorious manner.
What is an intestate succession?
When a property owner with heirs with no will, title is transferred through an order of th eprobate court.
What is an execution sale?
When a property is sold to satisfy a judgement.
What is a negative declaration?
A negative declaration regarding a proposed development means a subdivision does no harm to the environment.
When is flooding considered frequent?
When it occurs more often than once every ten years.
What are private controls?
Limitations on an owner’s use of their property created by those other than the government, such as developers or a homeowner’s association (HOA).
Private controls may be created individually through:
- deed restrictions by an owner
- a developer\s restrictions for a subdivision, including a Mello Roos district
- CC&Rs which place limitations on a property’s use mutually agreed to by all property owners in a condominium or PUD.
Water is categorized in one of two categories based on what?
its physical location relative to a parcel of real estate.
Water is categorized in one of two categories:
surface water
ground water
Define surface water. Give examples.
Water flowing over the sruface of the earh cause dby rain, snow, springs or seepage.
Examples:
- watercourses,
- lakes,
- springs,
- marshes,
- ponds,
- sloughs,
What is ground water?
Consists of percolating, subterranean bodies of water located in underground basins.
What are riparian rights?
Rights to withdraw surface waters.
Who are reparian landowners?
Holders of rights to withdraw surface waters.
What are overlying rights?
Rights to pump ground water.
Who are overlying landowners?
Holders of rights to pump ground water.
Legal rights to extract and use water are based on what?
Priorities
Legal rights to extract and use water are based on priorites and are classified as:
- landowner’s rights consisting of both riparian and overlying rights;
- appropriative rights to withdraw water under license from the state; and
- prescriptive rights to withdraw water legally entitled to be used by others.
What is alluvium?
Refers to the boundary of a property that has changed due to the relocation of a river or stream.
What is accession?
The physical addition to property through man-made efforts or by natural forces.
What is accretion?
Accretion is accession by natural forces only and refers to the gradual accumulation of additonal layers of soil.
What is avulsion?
The sudden decrease or increase of the earth on a shore of an ocean or stream resulting from the action of the water, such as occurs during a severe storm.
What is reliction?
The gradual recession of water leaving land permanently uncovered.
What is littoral rights?
Refers to the property rights of a property bordering a pond, lake or ocean.
Every city and county has a planning commission, which is advised by:
the local agency planning department
What is the planning commission tasked to do?
reviewing and approving a general plan- governing the growth of their municipality.
A general plan sets forth acceptable land uses within a jurisdiction, including a statement of development policies on:
- land us
- circulation patterns
- housing
- conservation
- open space
- noise
- safety.
Special categories of land include:
timeshare
resorts
rural subdivisions
What is alienation?
The voluntary act of an owner of some property disposing of the property.
What is appropriation?
The government’s taking of private property for public use under the power of eminent domain.
What is assemblage?
The process of joining several parcels to form a larger parcel.
What is plottage?
The resulting increase in value from an assemblage.
Land measurement
Township =
36 sq. mi. broken up into 36 sections
Land measurements
Section =
640 acres and 1 sq. mi.
Land measurement
Half section =
320 acres (quarter section = (quarter section = 160 acres; quarter of a quarter = 40 acres)
Acre =
43,560 sq, ft,
Mile =
5,280 ft.
Square mile =
- 27,878,400 sq. ft. (5,280 ft. x 5,280 ft.)
- or 640 acres (27,878,400 sq. ft. / 43,560 sq. ft.)
Square acre =
approximately 209 ft. x 209 ft.
1 yard =
3 ft.
1 square yard =
9 sq. ft. (3 ft. x 3 ft.)
1 mile =
320 rods, 5,280 ft
1 rod =
- 16.5 ft. or
- 5.5 yards (16.5 ft. / 3 ft.)
The first component of real estate is land, which includes:
a. soil.
c. reasonable airspace above the earth.
b. rocks.
d. All the above.
d — Land is inclusive of all listed answer choices.
The northeast 1/4 of a section contains:
a. 160 acres. c. 10 acres.
b. 320 acres. d. 40 acres.
a — There are 640 acres in a section. Divide this by four to find the area of a quarter section, 160 acres.
How many square feet are in three acres of land?
a. 130,680 c. 143,560
b. 217,800 d. 43,560
a — An acre of land contains 43,560 square feet. Thus, three acres of land equals 130,680 square feet. The conversion of acreage to square feet is the most common type of math question on the state exam.
An individual may obtain title by all the following means except:
a. grant. c. adverse use.
b. escheat. d. descent.
b — An individual may not obtain title by escheat. Only the state government may acquire title through escheat.
There are baseline and meridian systems in California.
a. 36 c. 3
b. 12 d. infinite
c — The three baseline and meridian systems in California are Humboldt, Mt. Diablo and San Bernardino.
Which of the following would be the least desirable reference point for a metes and bounds description?
a. The corner of a section. c. The corner of a quarter section.
b. A township line. d. A riverbank.
d — A riverbank may shift over time.
A lot contains 73,000 square yards. How many acres does this equal?
a. 29 c. 10
b. 14.7 d. 15.1
d — The parcel of land is described in square yards. First determine how many square feet this equals by multiplying the square yard by 9. 73,000 x 9 = 657,000 square feet. Then, divide by 43,560 (the square feet in one acre). 657,000 / 43,560 = 15.1 acres.
Which of the following statements regarding zoning is true?
a. Zoning is never retroactive.
b. Aesthetic values are not an interest in the establishment of zoning.
c. Zoning always takes precedence over deed restrictions.
d. Zoning law always keeps commercial and residential properties separate.
a — Zoning cannot apply to existing structures, only structures to be built.
Before a new home can be occupied:
a. all construction loans need to be paid off.
b. a certificate of occupancy must be issued by the local building department.
c. a notice of completion needs to be recorded by the owner.
d. offsite improvements need to be complete.
b — A certificate of occupancy issued by the building department is proof of habitability.
c — M = manufacturing, C = commercial, R = residential.
