Real Property Rules Flashcards
Joint Tenancy
- Two or or more people own with the right of survivorship.
- Freely transferable inter vivos
- Not descendible or devisable
Common Law Joint Tenancy
- Requires four unities: Time, title, identical interests, with right to possess the whole
Modern Joint Tenancy
- Grantor must clearly express the right of survivorship. “To A and B as joint tenants with the right of survivorship”
Severance of a Joint Tenancy
- A joint tenancy may be severed by sale or transfer which destroys the joint tenancy. If more than two joint-tenants, does not sever with the non-transferring joint tenants.
Three Types of Partition
- By voluntary agreement
- Judicial action that results in a partition in kind
- Judicial action that results in a forced sale
Transactions that don’t sever joint tenancy
- Mortgage (lien theory) state
- Death of one joint tenant through the unlawful killing of the other will change to a tenancy in common
Tenancy by the Entirety
- Similar to a joint tenancy but can only be between married partners
- Not freely transferable
- Severed by death, mutual agreement, or execution by a joint creditor
Tenancy in Common
- A concurrent estate with no right of survivorship
- Presumption if language doesn’t specifically create a joint tenancy
- Each tenant owns an individual part w/ a right to possess the whole
- Each interest is devisable, descendible, and alienable
Rights of Co-Tenants
- Right to possess the whole
- Right to retain profits for their exclusive use of the property
- A co-tenant must get any share of rental income from a third-party
Duties of Co-Tenants
- Carrying costs
- Repairs
- Improvements
- Not to conduct waste
Types of Waste
- Voluntary Waste (willful destruction)
- Permissive Waste (neglect)
- Ameliorative Waste (unilateral change that increases value)
Ouster
- When one co-tenant wrongfully excludes another co-tenant from possession of the whole or any part
The Tenancy for Years
A lease for fixed, determined period of time. Can be for one week or 50 years
- Terminates automatically at its end date
- Created by written leases. Greater than one year must be in writing for SOF
The Periodic Tenancy
- A leases which continues for successive intervals until either the landlord or tenant gives proper notice of termination
- Created expressly “year to year”, “month to month”.
Periodic Tenancy by Implication
- Land is leased with no mention of duration, but rent is paid in set intervals
- An oral term of years in violation of the SOF
- A residential lease, if a landlord elects to hold over a tenant who has wrongfully stayed on past the lease
- terminated by notice that is the same length of the period
The Tenancy at Will
- No fixed period of duration - it’s terminable at the will of either the landlord or the tenant
- “to T for as long as L or T desires”
- Must be created by express agreement that lease may be terminated ay any time
- If only landlord has right to terminate, tenant will as well. If only tenant, then court will not imply for landlord
Tenancy at Sufferance
- Created when a tenant wrongfully holds over past the expiration of the lease
- lasts until the landlord evicts the tenant or elects to hold the tenant to a new tenancy.
The Hold-Over Doctrine
- If the tenant continues in possession after their right to possession has ended, the landlord may: (1) evict the tenant, or (2) bind the tenant to a new periodic tenancy
- Commercial tenants may be held to a new year-to-year periodic tenancy if original lease was for one year or more
- Residential tenants held a new month-to-month tenancy, regardless of the original term
Tenant’s Duty to Repair
- Obligation to Maintain Premises (routine repairs)
- Tenant must not commit waste
Exception to Ameliorative Waste
- A long-term tenant and the change reflects changes in the neighborhood
Covenants to Repair
- A residential tenant covenants to repair, the landlord usually remains obligated to repair under the Implied Warranty of Habitability
- Nonresidential covenant to repair is enforceable
- frequently excludes ordinary wear and tear
Tenant’s Duty to Pay Rent
- If a tenant is on the premises and fails to pay rent, landlord can evict and still pay rent
- Landlord may not self-help though to get rent must go through the court
Tenant Breaches but Out of Possession Landlord Options
- Surrender: the landlord could choose to treat the tenant’s abandonment as an implicit offer of surrender, which the landlord accepts, ending the lease
- Ignore the abandonment and hold the tenant responsible for the unpaid rent
- Re-let the premises on the wrongdoer-tenant’s behalf, and hold the wrongdoer-tenant liable for any deficiency (majority rule)
Landlord Duty to Deliver Possession
- Requires that the landlord put the tenant in actual physical possession of the premises at the beginning of the lease-hold term
Implied Covenant of Quiet Enjoyments
- A tenant has a right to quiet use and enjoyment of the premises, without interference from the landlord or a paramount title holder
Actual Eviction
- Occurs when the landlord, a paramount title holder, or a hold-over tenant excludes the tenant from the leased premises. Terminates the obligation to pay rent.
Partial Eviction
- When the tenant is physically excluded from only part of the leased premises
- By the landlord relieves the tenant of obligation pay rent
- By a paramount title holder, will relief tenant to pay for the reasonable use of that space
Constructive Eviction
- When the landlord’s breach of duty renders the premises unsuitable for occupancy
- Tenant may terminate the lease and may also seek damages
Element for Constructive Eviction (SING)
- Substantial Interference
- Notice
- Goodbye
Acts of Other Tenants
- Generally landlord is not liable except:
- a landlord has a duty to abate a nuisance on site
- a landlord must control common areas
The Implied Warranty of Habitability
- Applies to residential leases and not to commercial leases
- Warranty is nonwaivable
- Premises must be fit for basic human habitation
Tenant’s Entitlement when IWH is Breached
- Move out and terminate the lease
- Repair and deduct
- Reduce rent or withhold all rent until the court determines fair rental value
- Remain in possession, pay full rent, and seek money damages
Reasonable Accommodations for Disability
- Landlords must permit disabled tenants to make reasonable modifications to existing premises to accommodate their disability at tenant’s expense
Assignment
- A transfer of the entire remaining term of a lease
- Assignee stands in the shoes of original tenant, them and the landlord are in privity of estate and liable for each other and covenants that “run with the land”
- Original tenant remains liable under privity of contract
Covenants that Run with the Land
- A covenant runs with the land if the original parties to the lease intend the covenant to touch and concern the land. benefits the landlord and burdens the tenant
Failure to Pay Rent in an Assignment
- landlord can hold assignee or assignor responsible for paying rent
Sublease
- A sublessee is the tenant of the original lessee and usually pays rent to the original lessee, who then pays the landlord
- Sublessee not responsible to the landlord because not in privity
- Cannot enforce any covenants against landlord, and landlord cannot enforce rent against sublessee
Covenants against Assignment or Sublease
- A landlord can prohibit a tenant from assigning or subleasing without landlord’s written approval
- Waived if knew of assignment and didn’t say something or consents to one, can no longer consent
- Lease covenants restricting assignment and sublease are strictly construed against the landlord. Landlord may terminate the lease but the transfer is not void
Landlord’s Tort Liability Common Law
- Let the tenant beware
- No duty to make the premises safe
Exceptions to Caveat Lesseee
- Common Areas
- Latent Defects
- Assumption of repairs
- Public use rule
- Short-term lease of furnished dwelling
Modern Landlord Tort Liability
- Many courts hold that a landlord owes a general duty of reasonable care toward residential tenants
- Will be held liable for injuries in tort resulting from ordinary negligence if the landlord had notice of a defect and an opp. to repair it
- Defects Arising after Tenant Takes Possession
- A landlord generally is held to have notice of defects existing before the tenant took possession but is not liable in tort for defects arising after the tenant takes possession unless the landlord knew or should have known
Easement
- A grant of a nonpossessory property interest that entitles its holder to some form of use or enjoyment of another’s land
Affirmative Easement
- The right to go onto and do something on the servient land
Negative Easement
- Entitles its holder to prevent the servient landowner from doing something that would otherwise be permissible
- Can only be created expressly
Only allowed for four categories: - light
- air
- support
- stream
Easement Appurtenant
- Benefits the holder in his physical use or enjoyment of his own land
- Two parcels of land must be involved
- A dominant tenement, which derives the benefit
- A servient tenement, which bears the burden
- Passes automatically with transfers of the dominant tenement
- Passes with the servient tenement unless new owner is a BFP without notice of the easement
Easement in Gross
- If it confers upon its holder only some personal or pecuniary advantage that is not related to their use of enjoyment of their land
- the servient land is burdened
- Not transferrable unless it is for commercial purposes
Easement by Prescription
- Analogous to Adverse Possession
- Elements for a prescriptive easement are:
- Continuous and uninterrupted use for the given statute’s period
- Open and Notorious Use
- Actual use, no need for exclusivity
- Hostile use (w/o owners consent
Easement Implied
- Created by operation of law and implied from preexisting use
Easement by Necessity
- An easement by necessity will be implied when a landowner conveys a portion of her land with no way out except over the grantor’s remaining land.
- Servient parcel has the right to locate an easement
Easement by Grant
- Must be memorialized in writing and signed by the holder of the servient tenement unless it’s less than one year
Easement by Reservation
- Arises when a grantor conveys title to land but reserves the right to continue to use the tract for a special purpose
- An attempt to reserve an easement for anyone else is void
Scope of Easement
- Determined by the terms of the grant or the conditions that created it
- Must be reasonable if not specified
- Remedy for overuse is injunction and not termination
Ways to Terminate Easement (END CRAMP)
- Estoppel
- Necessity (as soon as the necessity ends)
- Destruction
- Condemnation
- Release
- Abandonment
- Merger
Estoppel Termination of Easement
- An oral expression of an intent to abandon an easement and the servient owner relies on it
The License
- Not an interest in land, merely a privilege revocable at the will of the licensor
- Writing not needed
- Ticket
- Neighbors talking by the fence (oral easement by a license)