Property Ownership Flashcards
A nonpossessory interest in property, giving a lienholder the right to foreclose if the owner does not pay a debt owed the lienholder; a financial encumbrance on the owner’s title.
Lien
A government’s valuation of property for tax purposes.
Assessement
- Taking private property for public use, through the government’s power of eminent domain. Also called appropriation. 2. A declaration that a structure is unfit for occupancy and must be closed or demolished.
Condemnation
An easement granted to another in a deed or other document.
Easement by Express Grant
A restriction on real property use, imposed by a former owner; promise to do or not do an act relating to real property; usually owner’s promise to not use property in a particular way. May or may not run with land. Also called: Restrictive Covenant
Deed Restriction
An easement created in a deed when a landowner is dividing the property, transferring the servient tenement but retaining the dominant tenement.
Easement by Express Reservation
An easement created by operation of law (not express grant or reservation) when land is divided, if there is a long-standing, apparent use that is reasonably necessary for enjoyment of the dominant tenement.
Easement by Implication
A special kind of easement by implication that occurs when the dominant tenement would be completely useless without an easement, even if it is not a long-standing, apparent use.
Easement by Necessity
An easement created by open and notorious, hostile, and adverse use of another person’s land for a specific period of time determined by state law. Prescriptive use does not have to be exclusive (the owner may be using the property, too), and the user does not acquire title to the property.
Easement by Prescription
An easement that benefits a person or company, rather than benefiting another parcel of land.
Easement In Gross
A physical object intruding onto neighboring property, often due to a mistake regarding the boundary.
Encroachment
Any claim, lien, charge, or liability that affects or limits the fee simple title to real property.
Encumbrance
A lien against all property of a debtor, instead of a particular piece of property.
General Lien
A recorded notice which states that there is a lawsuit pending that may affect title to the defendant’s real estate.
Lis Pendens
A specific lien claimed by someone who performed work on the property (construction, repairs, or improvements) and has not been paid.
Mechanics Lien
A lien that attaches only to a particular piece of property (as opposed to a general lien, which attaches to all of the debtor’s property).
Specific Lien
A Latin phrase meaning ‘according to value’; used to refer to taxes assessed on the value of property.
Ad Valorem
A life estate ‘for the life of another,’ where the measuring life is someone other than the life tenant.
Pur Autre Vie
An easement acquired by prescription.
Prescriptive Easement
An easement created in a deed when a landowner is dividing the property, transferring the servient tenement but retaining the dominant tenement.
Express Reservation
An easement granted to another in a deed or other document.
Express Grant
A gradual addition to dry land by the forces of nature, as when the tide deposits water-borne sediment on shoreline property.
Accretion
The right to undisturbed use and control of the airspace over a parcel of land (within reasonable limits for air travel); may be transferred separately from the land.
Air Rights
A right that goes along with ownership of real property; usually transferred with the property, but may be sold separately.
Appurtenance
Personal property that is closely associated with real property, such as a lease.
Chattel Real
A provision in a contract, deed, law, regulation, guideline, etc. that makes the parties’ rights and obligations depend on the occurrence (or non-occurrence) of a particular event. Also called a Contingency Clause.
Condition
A fee estate in real property that may be defeated or undone if certain events occur or conditions aren’t met.
Defeasible Fee
A person who has easement rights on another’s property; either the owner of a dominant tenement, or someone who has an easement in gross.
Dominant Tenant
A gradual loss of soil due to the action of water or wind.
Erosion
A nonpossessory interest and an encumbrance on property that grants the right to use another person’s real property for a particular purpose.
Easement
A freehold estate that lasts only as long as a specified person lives. That person is referred to as the measuring life.
Estate for Life
A leasehold estate set to last for a definite period (one week, three years, etc.), after which it terminates automatically. Also called a term tenancy.
Estate for Years
The greatest estate one can have in real property; freely transferable and inheritable, and of indefinite duration, with no conditions on the title.
Estate in Fee Simple
A future interest that becomes possessory when a life estate terminates, and that’s held by someone other than grantor of the life estate; (reversion is a future interest held by the grantor).
Estate in Remainder
A future interest that becomes possessory when a temporary estate (such as a life estate) terminates, and that is held by the grantor (or their successors in interest).
Estate in Reversion
The greatest estate one can have in real property; freely transferable and inheritable, and of indefinite duration, with no conditions on the title.
Fee Simple
A man-made attachment; an item of personal property that has been attached to or closely associated with real property in such a way that it has legally become part of the real property.
Fixture
A possessory interest in real property of uncertain (and often unlimited) duration; an ownership estate in real property; either a fee simple or life estate. Holder of freehold estate has title.
Freehold
A freehold estate that lasts only as long as a specified person lives. That person is referred to as the measuring life.
Life Estate
When a body of water gradually recedes, exposing land that was previously under water. Also called dereliction.
Reliction
A future interest that becomes possessory when a temporary estate (such as a life estate) terminates, and that is held by the grantor (or their successors in interest).
Reversion
A future interest that becomes possessory when a life estate terminates, and that’s held by someone other than grantor of the life estate; (reversion is a future interest held by the grantor).
Remainder
The water rights of landowner whose property is adjacent to or crossed by a river (or any body of water).
Riparian Rights
A form of co-ownership in which two or more persons each have an undivided interest in the entire property (unity of possession), but no right of survivorship.
Tenancy In Common
Place where something exists; an area of preference or preference by people for a certain location thus giving economic attributes (value) to the property.
Situs
Equipment a tenant installs for use in their trade or business, and can be removed by tenant before the lease expires.
Trade Fixtures
An estate that can be willed or descend to heirs, such as a fee simple estate.
Estate of Inheritance
A form of co-ownership of property by a married couple, in which each spouse has an undivided 1/2 interest and the right of survivorship, with neither spouse able to convey or encumber their interest without the other spouse’s consent. (In Ohio, tenancy by the entireties has been replaced by statutory survivorship tenancy; tenacies by the entireties from before 1985 still exist, but no new ones may be created.)
Tenancy by the Entireties
The greatest estate one can have in real property; freely transferable and inheritable, and of indefinite duration, with no conditions on the title.
Fee Simple Absolute
A fee estate in real property that may be defeated or undone if certain events occur or conditions aren’t met.
Fee Simple Defeasible
- A court’s binding determination of the rights and duties of the parties in a lawsuit. 2. A court order requiring one party to pay the other damages.
Judgment
Ownership by a single individual, as opposed to co-ownership.
Ownership in Severalty
The water rights of a landowner whose property is adjacent to a lake or contains a lake; often called riparian rights (although that term really refers only to the water rights of a landowner on a river).
Littoral Rights
