Real Estate Law

Overview and Practice Tests

Common Property Law Issues

There are several topics and issues that arise regularly in the practice of real estate law. Several of the common property law issues are set forth in the preceding paragraph. These are mandatory topics that are studied in law school and that are covered in the Real Property questions in the bar examination. These are also the issues and subject matter that arise in the daily practice of real estate law. The BPH program refreshes these concepts for you, improves your recall through the use of state-of-the art learning methodologies and gives you practice in using this knowledge so that you can be in control when you take the exam.

Title

Title refers to the valid ownership of real property, and a valid title is required to claim and enforce ownership rights. Ownership can be conveyed by a legal document known as a deed or by devise in an owner’s last will and testament. it can manifest through equitable rights or possession in some cases. The BPH course studies the different types of warranties that may be contained in a deed of conveyance and the rules for the valid transfer of title; our hypotheticals also deal with the obtaining of title through possessory concepts or through foreclosure and execution.

Fee Simple Absolute

Fee simple absolute is the most absolute form of ownership. A fee simple absolute is ownership and possession of real property for an infinite term without restrictions. The fee simple owner of the property can pass it on to his or her heirs through intestate succession or by will. Of course, real estate is also widely transferred by purchase and sale.

Life Estate

A life estate is ownership of a property for the duration of the life tenant’s life. Once the life tenant dies, ownership of the property will either pass to a third person or entity or it will revert back to the original owner if he or she is alive, or to the original owner’s estate if the original owner is deceased. Who gets ownership of a life estate after the life tenant dies is determined by the terms and wording of the legal document, i.e., a will or a deed, that granted the property to the life estate owner in the first place.

Fee Simple Defeasible

A fee simple defeasible has conditions placed on ownership of the real property by way of the deed of conveyance or the last will and testament. The owner will only have ownership of the property as long as or until that condition is fulfilled, depending upon whether it is a fee simple determinable or fee simple subject to condition subsequent. A fee simple determinable is subject to a condition in order to retain ownership to the property. If that condition is violated, the property interest will end and revert back to the grantor immediately.

An example of a fee simple determinable would be if somebody is granted a fee simple on the condition that the property be used for charitable purposes. If the property ceases to be used for charitable purposes, the fee simple will end and automatically revert back to the grantor.

A fee simple subject to condition subsequent places a later restriction or condition upon ownership of the property. For example, the grantor may grant a fee simple, but state that if the property is later used as commercial property, then the grantor has the right to retake the property. If the condition subsequent is violated, then the property does not automatically revert to the grantor. The grantor will have a right to re-enter and reclaim the property if they so choose. In the fee simple determinable stated above, the ownership rights cease automatically by operation of law and revert back to the original owner or his or her estate.

Adverse possession

Adverse possession is a way to gain title to the real property of another by occupying the land adversely for a certain amount of time with the intent to possess the land as one’s own. The requirements to establish adverse possession are generally for the possession to be without permission, actual, open, adverse and notorious so that others view the property as belonging to that person or view that person in possession, exclusive to that person, and continuous for a statutory period. Cultivating the land, mowing the grass and putting up barriers to keep others out are all factors tending to prove adversity. If all of these requirements are met, and the owner never re-enters the land to take possession back, then title will be granted to the adverse possessor after the statutory period for that state is reached.

Easement

An easement is a right to use land or enter onto the land and is not a possessory right. An easement can take the form of a right to use someone’s property as a pathway to gain access to a road or a river, or a parking lot for their business. An easement is a property right to use the land but does not constitute a legal right of ownership.

Landlord-Tenant arrangements

Landlord-tenant agreements are contracts between a tenant of a rental property and the person who owns or manages that property. This is the typical arrangement There is a specific set of laws for each state that pertains to landlord-tenant situations.