Property Law

This is the second in a series of lessons. To get the maximum benefit students should first complete the lesson on Covenants and Equitable Servitudes: Creation.

This is the third in a series of lessons. To get the maximum benefit students should complete the following lessons in order: Covenants, Equitable Servitudes and Restrictions: Creation and Covenants, Equitable Servitudes and Restrictions: Determining Their Validity and Scope.

This is the fourth in a series of lessons. To get the maximum benefit students should complete the following lessons in order: Covenants, Equitable Servitudes and Restrictions: Creation; Covenants, Equitable Servitudes and Restrictions: Determining Their Validity and Scope; and Covenants, Equitable Servitudes and Restrictions: Who Has the Right to Enforce Covenants and Equitable Servitudes?

This tutorial is the fifth and final tutorial in a series of lessons. To get the maximum benefit of CALI's alternative approach, before using this exercise, students should complete the following lessons in order: Covenants, Equitable Servitudes and Restrictions: Creation, Covenants, Equitable Servitudes and Restrictions: Determining Their Validity and Scope, and Covenants and Equitable Servitudes: Who Has the Right to Enforce Covenants and Equitable Servitudes?

This lesson provides an introductory overview of the distinction between real property and personal property, including the historic origins of the distinction, the consequences of attaching things to land and severing things from land, the significance of fixtures, and examples of intangible property classified as real or personal property.

This lesson examines the distinction between easements appurtenant (easements that exist to benefit another parcel of land) and easements in gross (easements that benefit an individual or business entity without regard to his or its ownership of land). The distinction is a crucial one in determining who is entitled to the benefit of the easement and how the easement may be used.

This lesson introduces the law of easements by describing the typical scenario in which the need for an easement arises, examining alternatives to the creation of an easement, offering a legal definition of an easement and summarizing the key sub-issues that arise in this legal area.

This lesson examines the circumstances under which the law will imply an easement from prior existing use of the dominant and servient parcels. Each of the required elements for such implication: common ownership, prior use, severance and reasonable necessity are addressed specifically. The lesson also describes the different burden imposed when the common owner claims the benefit of the easement from that imposed when the grantee claims that benefit.

This exercise gives a basic overview of the types of equitable remedies. You need not have read any particular materials or taken any particular law school courses in order to complete the tutorial. It can be used to provide background in your courses where equity is especially relevant or to review the types of equitable remedies for use in a remedies course.

This lesson will introduce students to the estate in fee tail, one of the traditional estate in land recognized by Anglo-American Law. While the fee tail has been abolished in most American jurisdictions, it continues to be recognized in modified form in a few states. Understanding the fee tail will give you a better understanding of the system of estates in land as a whole.

This lesson and Basic Future Interests are designed to provide a comprehensive interactive tutorial with a scope corresponding to the usual coverage of estates and elementary future interests in the typical first-year property course. They are designed to be useful either for review or as a "first learning exposure" to the subjects covered. The lessons consist of text screens that are regularly interleaved with questions to stimulate thought and reinforce students' learning as they go.

This review exercise consists of 100 questions about the estate system. It should be attempted only after studying the material in class or in other CALI lessons.

This lesson introduces the student to the most common type of easement, the express easement. When we speak of an express easement we mean an easement that is voluntarily created by the parties to it. Express easements are to be contrasted with easements that are implied by law. Implied easements are the subject of another lesson.

In the Anglo-American legal system land is not owned directly. Rather, people own legal interests in land. The reason land is owned in this way goes back to the feudal origins of land holding in England. The fee simple absolute is one of the estates in land, which emerged from that system.

This lesson will help you understand: (1) the legal concept of an estate in land, (2) the legal characteristics of the fee simple absolute, and (3) what is necessary to create a fee simple absolute.

This exercise is designed as a basic introduction for the beginning student to the fundamental principles involved in real estate financing . However, real estate financing is a complicated topic and best dealt within an upper division Real Estate Finance class. So, this interactive tutorial will not complete the topic, except as typically addressed in a first year Property class.

This lesson reviews the key aspects of the Merger Rule, the Rule in Shelley's Case and the Doctrine of Worthier Title. These three rules transform future interests in certain types of conveyances and should be learned after one has mastered the classification of estates and future interests and before one studies the Rule Against Perpetuities.

This lesson addresses inter vivos gifts of property, focusing primarily on personal property (but with a brief discussion of inter vivos gifts of land). The lesson explores the function of the various requirements (donative intent, delivery, and acceptance) for a valid inter vivos gift and the policies implicated by the law of gifts. The lesson includes a wide variety of problems designed to test student understanding of the rules governing inter vivos gifts.

This lesson follows up and builds upon the material in the lesson on Inter Vivos Gifts, but focuses instead upon transfers at death or in anticipation of death.

This exercise examines the requirements for implication of an easement of necessity. Implied easements of necessity arise when, as a result of an owner of land transferring part of his land, either the transferred part or the retained part is landlocked such that the owner of that parcel cannot gain access to it.

In property, trusts and estates, or wills students learn a range of technical language for creating estates and interests in land and other property. They have probably prepared themselves to recognize these "magic words" and identify the interests they create. They may even find themselves enjoying this linguistic exercise, feeling as though here, finally, is an area of law in which there are "right" and "wrong" answers.

This lesson is the first of several addressing the various relationships resulting in the concurrent ownership of property. It is designed to introduce Property students to this tenancy form. The tutorial progresses from addressing the traditional unities required to create a joint tenancy, the resulting right of survivorship, and the numerous events severing the tenancy. Also, it addresses the status of joint tenancy under modern statutes.

This lesson provides an introductory overview of landlord-tenant law, including: the historical origins of non-freehold estates; basic vocabulary of landlord-tenant law; including the concept of rent; the significance of leases as a mechanism for gaining the right to use and possess land; and the conveyance and contract theories of landlord-tenant law as alternative approaches for fashioning legal rules.

The lesson in landlord-tenant law addresses the doctrine of constructive eviction. It is assumed that you have a good understanding of the covenant of quiet enjoyment, which is a predicate for the doctrine of constructive eviction. Before doing this lesson, you should study the separate lesson named "Landlord and Tenant: Quiet Enjoyment," unless you are sure that you have a firm grip on the covenant of quiet enjoyment, actual evictions, and remedies for breach of quiet enjoyment.