Land Use Law

Question 1

Property Rules

Answer 1

Someone who wishes to remove the entitlement from its holder must buy it from him in a voluntary transaction in which the owner of the entitlement sets the price. Property rules typically result in injunctions.

Question 2

Liability Rules

Answer 2

The transfer of the entitlement is allowed on the basis of a value determined by some objective third party rather than by the parties themselves. Liability rules usually mean payments of monetary relief, or damages.

Question 3

Inalienability Rules

Answer 3

Transfer is not permitted between a willing buyer and seller. The state determines who is initially entitled and the compensation that must be paid if the entitlement is taken or destroyed, and then forbids its sale under all circumstances.

Question 4

Coase Theorem

Answer 4

Predicts that when transactions costs are low, thereby making consensual exchange of entitlements a realistic possibility, courts should prefer property rule protection.

Question 5

Easement Appurtenant to Land

Answer 5

“Owned” by the land. Dominant tenement: the parcel that derives the benefit as a consequence of the appurtenant easement. Servient tenement: the parcel that bears the burden of the easement.

Question 6

Affirmative Easement

Answer 6

Most easements are affirmative. They give the holder the right to do something on another’s land.

Question 7

Negative Easement

Answer 7

Entitles the holder to compel the servient landowner to refrain from doing something. Can only be created expressly.

Question 8

Easement by Prescription

Answer 8

i. To acquire an affirmative easement by prescription, the use must be continuous, open and notorious, actual and hostile.

Question 9

Easement by Estoppel

Answer 9

An easement by estoppel occurs when there is reliance on permission.

Question 10

Easement by Necessity

Answer 10

An easement by right of way will be implied by necessity if grantor conveys a portion of his land with no way out, except over some part of grantor’s remaining land.

Question 11

Abandonment of Easements

Answer 11

Easements can be terminated when the owner stops using it and takes some affirmative step to abandon the easement.

Question 12

Covenants

Answer 12

A promise regarding land. Specially, about the right to insist on the use or nonuse of the land.

Question 13

Real Covenants

Answer 13

If the plaintiff is seeking money damages because of the violation of a promise regarding land, the promise is a real covenant.

Question 14

Equitable Servitudes

Answer 14

If the plaintiff is seeking injunctive relief, the promise is an equitable servitude.

Question 15

For the burden of a real covenant to run with the land, there must be:

Answer 15

WITHV

Writing, Intent, Touch & Concern, Horizontal Privity, Vertical Privity

Question 16

Touch & Concern

Answer 16

The promise must be of and pertaining to land.

Question 17

Horizontal Privity

Answer 17

The original parties must have shared some interest in the land

Question 18

Vertical Privity

Answer 18

There must be a nexus between the convenanting party and the successor.

Question 19

For the benefit of a real covenant to run with the land, there must be:

Answer 19

WITV

Writing, Intent, Touch & Concern, Vertical Privity

Question 20

An equitable servitude will run with the land if:

Answer 20

WITN

Writing, Intent, Touch & Concern, Notice

Question 21

Co-Op

Answer 21

An arrangement where each owner owns a share of the corporation that owns a given building and each owner has an indefinitely long “proprietary lease.” The shareholders govern the building together.

Question 22

Condominiums

Answer 22

Each owner in a condominium has fee simple ownership of their unit, and tenancy in common with the other owners of the common areas

Question 23

Subdivisions

Answer 23

A subdivision is a planned development typically governed by a homeowners association