Morgan's (I-C)

Question 1

What are the three broad types of encumbrances?

Answer 1

1. Liens
2. Easements
3. Enchroachments

Question 2

What are non-ownership interests that represent a restriction on the use and/or transfer of real property?

Answer 2

Encumbrances

Question 3

What is a monetary encumbrance that asserts the holder has a creditor’s claim to a specific monetary interest in the property’s value?

Answer 3

Lien

Question 4

What is an example of a voluntary lien?

Answer 4

Mortgage

Question 5

What is an example of an involuntary lien?

Answer 5

Tax lien, judgment, or other claims against a property for equity interest

Question 6

In addition to voluntary and involuntary, what is another way to categorize liens?

Answer 6

Specific (or special) and general

Question 7

What is the difference between a specific and general lien?

Answer 7

General affects all of a debtor’s property and assets

Specific is limited to a specified item controlled by the debtor

Question 8

What are the categories for mortgage liens?

Answer 8

Voluntary and specific

Question 9

What are the categories for a mechanic’s lien?

Answer 9

Involuntary and specific

Non-payment of claims by those who worked on a property

Question 10

What are the categories for materialman’s liens?

Answer 10

Involuntary and specific

Non-payment of claims by those who provided materials for a property

Question 11

When a special assessment lien results from an owner’s request for the improvement, these are ___ and ___. When they result from a municipality-initiated improvement, they are ___ and ___.

Answer 11

Voluntary and specific

Involuntary and specific

Question 12

What are the categories for municipal property tax liens?

Answer 12

Involuntary and specific

Result from unpaid taxes

Question 13

What are the categories for federal (IRS) tax liens?

Answer 13

Involuntary and general

Question 14

What are the categories for judgment liens?

Answer 14

Involuntary and general

Result from a court order to pay a certain amount to a creditor

Question 15

When are liens generally effective?

Answer 15

The day they are recorded (or officially filed)

Question 16

In the event more than one lien is recorded, what dictates the priority for payment? What is the exception?

Answer 16

Date of recordation (from the first to the most recent)

THE GOVERNMENT

Also, property tax liens are always superior to other liens.

Question 17

What are interests in land that give a nonowner the right to use a property for a specific purpose (generally to cross over it)?

Answer 17

Easements

Question 18

What are two types of easements affording access?

Answer 18

1. Appurtenant

2. In gross

Question 19

What are two types of non-monetary encumbrance?

Answer 19

Easements
Encroachments

(Also include subivision covenants, conditions, and restrictions (CC&Rs), and owners’ association rules)

Question 20

___ is the right to use one property for the benefit of another. Give one common example.

Answer 20

Easement appurtenant (appurtenant easement)

Example: right-of-way

Question 21

___ is a special, but common, type of appurtenant easement that arises automatically in cases where an owner sells a landlocked parcel of a larger property.

Answer 21

Easement by necessity

For example, if you buy Maggie’s backyard, you can use the driveway through an easement by necessity

Question 22

In a situation of an easement by necessity, the property that provides, and must allow, the access is referred to as ___.

Answer 22

Servient tenement (or servient estate)

That property is a “servant” to the interest of the one that requires it

Question 23

In a situation of an easement by necessity, the property that commands the benefits of the use is referred to as the ___.

Answer 23

Dominant tenement or dominant estate

Question 24

True or false - appurtenant rights and interests remain in full force even if omitted from the language of a deed during a property transfer.

Answer 24

True

Question 25

How does an easement in gross differ from an easement appurtenant?

Answer 25

There is only a servient tenement

Question 26

What are 2 examples of an easement in gross?

Answer 26

Utilities (sewer pipes and telephone lines)
Personal use (eg, owner lets a neighbor cross a property as a shortcut or to get to a waterway)

Question 27

True or false - personal-use easements are typically not transferable and terminate with the death of either party or the sale of the property.

Answer 27

True

Question 28

Owners that allow others to use their land without a specific arrangement may lose the right to STOP that use if it becomes protected by law through ___.

Answer 28

Easement by prescription (or prescriptive easement)

Question 29

Prescriptive easements must meet several legal tests, most notably, that the use of the property has occurred regularly for the minimum ___ required by state law.

Answer 29

Statutory period

(Other conditions for acquiring an easement by prescription include the pattern of use - namely, use must be open, notorious, and hostile)

Question 30

___ is the principle by which a new owner may be able to claim a previous owner’s period of similar adverse use to satisfy a statutory minimum-period requirement.

Answer 30

Tacking

Question 31

___ are a common building wall or a stand-alone wall either on or at a property line (therefore involves both owners in ownership, maintenance, and/or access issues).

Answer 31

Party wall easements

Question 32

A ___ is a personal, revocable right of privilege granted by an owner to someone else to use the property, typically in a brief limited way.

Answer 32

License

Can be seen as a changing a trespasser into a visitor; not a type of easement

Question 33

List 2 examples of licenses.

Answer 33

Tickets to use a parking lot or watch a movie in a theater

Question 34

___ are a special type of encumbrance that involve some form of overlapping use of one property by another.

Answer 34

Enchroachments

Question 35

Examples of enchroachments include when a portion of a building actually crosses the property line, known as a ___, or tree limbs or a roofline extending across a property boundary, known as a ___.

Answer 35

Trespass; nuisance

Question 36

True or false - encroachments are unauthorized and/or illegal infringements that can affect a title’s marketability.

Answer 36

True (and can affect the marketability for both properties)

Question 37

Another property encumbrance that affects the marketability of a property’s title is a ___, which is latin for “pending lawsuit.”

Answer 37

Lis pendens