Real Property - MEE Flashcards
Caveat emptor - common law doctrine
A builder made no warranties to a home buyer regarding the quality of the structure.
Modern law - Implied warranty of habitability (or implied warranty of workmanlike construction) either by statute or by judicial precedent
Home is “designed and constructed in a workmanlike manner and fit for habitation”
Warranty deeds include 6 covenants
3 present covenants - enforceable only by the warrantee named in the warranty deed
3 future covenants - enforceable by the named warrantee and all future transferees
Covenant of quiet enjoyment
Protects the warrantee and any remote grantee against claims based on the warrantor’s absence of title to all or a portion of the land conveyed in the warranty deed
Warranty deed may expressly exclude (or “except”) from the warranties in the deed based on titles, easement, covenants, and restrictions “of record,” meaning titles, easements, covenants, and other restrictions that have been filed in the land records of the county in which the land is located.
Where such exclusion is provided for on the warranty deed, the downstream buyer has no cause of action against the warrantor for breach of the covenant of quiet enjoyment because the buyer’s quiet enjoyment was disturbed as result of the excluded title.
What does it mean when an adverse possession claim is reduced to judgment?
part of the land records
What is a quitclaim deed?
A deed with no warranties of title.
The grantor does not warrant that the grantor owns anything or has the right to convey title to the grantee.
Marketable title is relevant only to the question of whether a buyer can refuse to close a transaction and to take title of land from a seller due to a title defect.
Once the deed is delivered, the issue of marketable title is irrelevant, and the claims relating to title defects are based solely on the nature of the deed received.
Easement by necessity is an encumbrance on the land
Language in the deed excepting “all titles, covenants, and restrictions on record with the county recorder” would not be a basis for excepting the easement by necessity from the warranty because these easements arise by operation of law and are not recorded
Special warranty deed
seller is not guaranteeing the condition of the title during any period of ownership by anyone but the seller
What is the doctrine of constructive adverse possession?
This doctrine allows someone claim land they haven’t physically occupied if a document, like a deed, includes both the land they occupy and nearby land owned by the same person. The document allows their possession to extend to the entire area described.
How to acquire title by adverse possession?
A possessor must wrongfully enter the land of another triggering a cause of action for possession by the true owner of the land.
Once the cause of action for adverse possession accrues, the wrongdoer’s possession must be
actual, open and notorious, continuous, exclusive, and hostile and under claim of right for the entire statutory period over which the true owner could have sued.
In an adverse possession case, what happens if the true owner fails to sue by the end of the statutory period?
The SOL runs on that suit, with the consequence that the possessor acquires a title by adverse possession good against everyone, including the true owner who failed to timely sue.
What is Tacking?
Tacking allows successive periods of possession by different individuals to be combined to meet the time requirement for adverse possession. For tacking to apply, the possession must be continuous, and the parties involved must be connected by privity, such as through a sale, gift, or inheritance of the property.
Privity exists when the second person inherited the land owned by the first person.