REAL PROPERTY

Question 1

Present Estate

Answer 1

Under common law, present estates are presently possessory interest in land. A possessory interest is the right to control a parcel of land and to exclude others from it

Question 2

Fee Simple Absolute

Answer 2

Under common law, an estate in fee simple is an absolute ownership of an estate of infinite duration.

Question 3

Defeasible Fee Simple

Answer 3

Under common law, a defeasible is a free simple estate that is subject to termination by the happening of a specified event. Defeasible estates thus terminate unnaturally.

Question 4

Fee Simple Determinable (and Possibility of Reverter)

Answer 4

Under common law, a fee simple determinable is an estate that automatically terminates and reverts to the grantor on the happening of a specific event.

Question 5

Fee Simple Subject to Condition Subsequent (and Right to Entry/Power of Termination)

Answer 5

Under common law, a fee simple subject to condition subsequent is an estate where the grantor retains the power to terminate the estate of the grantee on the happening of a specified event.

Question 6

Fee Simple Subject to Executory Interest (and Shifting Executory Interest)

Answer 6

Under common law, a fee simple subject to executory interest is an estate where upon the happening of a specified event, the estate is automatically forfeited in favor of someone other than the grantor.

Question 7

Life Estate (and Reversion or Remainder)

Answer 7

Under common law, a life estate is an estate that is measured by the explicit lifetime of a person and never in terms of years.

Question 8

Life Estate Pur Autre Vie

Answer 8

Under common law, a life estate pur autre vie is a special type of life estate where the life estate is measured by a life other than that of the grantee.

Question 9

Future Interest

Answer 9

Under common law, future interest are interest in an estate that do not entitle the owner to immediate possession, but will or may give the owner possession on the future.

Question 10

Reversion

Answer 10

Under common law, a reversion is an interest retained by the grantor when the grantor conveys less than his entire estate, and the future interest is not a possibility of reverter or right of entry/power of termination.

Question 11

Remainder

Answer 11

Under common law, a remainder is a future interest created in a grantee that is capable of becoming possessory immediately upon the natural termination of the prior estate.

Question 12

Indefeasibly Vested Remainders

Answer 12

Under common law, an indefeasibly vested remainder is a vested remainder held by an ascertained person (or persons) that is (are) certain to become possessory upon termination of the prior estate, and is not subject to a condition subsequent.

Question 13

Vested Remainder Subject to Total Divestment

Answer 13

Under common law, a vested remainder subject to total divestment is a vested remainder that is subject to complete divestment upon the occurrence of a condition subsequent.

Question 14

Vested Remainder Subject to Open

Answer 14

Under Common law, a vested remainder subject to open is a vested remainder in a person (or persons ) who is (are) certain to take upon the termination of the prior estate, but that may later have to be shared with others.

Question 15

Contingent Remainders

Answer 15

Under common law, a contingent remainder is a remainder that is either given to an unascertainable person or made subject to a condition precedent.

Question 16

Executory Interest

Answer 16

Under common law, an executory interest is a future interest, held by a third person, that cuts short another’s interest.

Question 17

Shifting Executory Interest

Answer 17

Under common law, a shifting executory interest is a non-reversionary future interest that divest the interest of another transferee in the same conveyance.

Question 18

Springing Executory Interest

Answer 18

Under common law, a springing executory interest is an executory interest that follow a gap in possession or divest the estate of the transferor.

Question 19

The Rule Against Perpetuities

Answer 19

Under common law, the Rule Against Perpetuities voids certain future interest in third parties (not the grantor) if there is any possibility, however remote, that the given interest may vest more than 21 years after some life in being at the creation of the interest.

Question 20

Cotenancy

Answer 20

Under common law, a cotenancy is an estate in which more tan one person has the right to the enjoyment and possession of the land at the same time.

Question 21

Tenancy in Common

Answer 21

Under common law, Tenancy in common is a tenancy by two or more persons, in equal or unequal divided shares, who each have an equal right to possess the whole property but not right to survivorship

Question 22

Joint Tenancy

Answer 22

Under common law, a joint tenancy is a tenancy by two or more persons, who take identical interests simultaneously by the same instrument with the same right of possession and with a right of survivorship.

Question 23

Tenancy by the Entirety

Answer 23

Under common law, a tenancy by the entirety is a tenancy between husband a wife, arising when a single instrument conveys property to the husband and wife, creating an indestructible right of survivorship, and the interest created is not a joint tenancy.

Question 24

Term of Years (Tenancy for Years)

Answer 24

Under common law, a term of years is an estate in land for a fixed period of time that does not require notice for termination.

Question 25

Periodic Tenancy

Answer 25

Under common law, a periodic tenancy is an estate in land that continues for successive or continuos intervals, until the landlord or the tenant gives proper notice of termination.

Question 26

Tenancy at will

Answer 26

Under common law, a tenancy at will is an estate in land in which the tenant holds possession with the landlord’s consent but without fixed terms.

Question 27

Assignment

Answer 27

Under common law, an assignment is a transfer of the tenant’s whole property interest to an assignee.

Question 28

Sublease

Answer 28

Under common law, a sublease is a transfer by a tenant to a sublessee (also called subtenant) that conveys some or all of the leased property for a shorter duration than the original lease thereby giving the (original) tenant a reversion in the lease.

Question 29

Fixture

Answer 29

Under common law, a fixture is a previously movable personal property that, by virtue of its physical attachment to realty, becomes part of the realty.

Question 30

Easement

Answer 30

Under common law, an easement is a nonpossessory property interest, entitling the holder to special use of the servient tenement without a right to possess or enjoy the servient tenement.

Question 31

Covenant

Answer 31

Under common law, a covenant is a written promise to do something on the land or a promise not to do something on the land; a covenant runs with the land and is capable of binding successors. A breach of a real covenant is remedied by an award of money damages, not an injunction.

Question 32

Equitable Servitude

Answer 32

Under common law, an equitable servitude is a covenant that will be enforced against successors who had notice of the covenant, regardless of whether to formal privity requirements were met. To receive an injunction or specific performance as a remedy, the covenant must qualify as equitable servitude.

Question 33

Profit

Answer 33

Under common law, a profit is a nonpossessory interest in the land where the holder is entitled to enter the servient land to take resources from the land.

Question 34

License

Answer 34

Under common law, a license is a mere privilege ot enter another’s land for a delineated purpose.

Question 35

Adverse Possession

Answer 35

Under common law, a trespasser can be transformed into a rightful owner of property if he has had continuos, open and notorious, actual, and hostile possession of another’s (though not the government’s) property for statutorily prescribed period of time.

Question 36

Mortgage

Answer 36

A mortgage is a conveyance of an interest in property for the purpose of securing an obligation hat the debtor owes the lender.

Question 37

Deed of Trust

Answer 37

A deed of trust is a transaction in which the trustor gives the deed of trust to a trustee who is associated with the lender.

Question 38

Foreclosure

Answer 38

Foreclosure is the process by which the mortgagor’s interest in the property is terminated and generally sold to satisfy the debt held by the mortgagee in whole or in part.

Question 39

Redemption

Answer 39

Under common law, until the lender brings an action against the borrower, the borrower has the option of paying the missed mortgage payments, interest and cost to recover the property.