Understanding Property Law

• Property law concerns the acquisition, transfer, and protection of valuable assets and governs property ownership forms
• It applies to different law areas like trust law and intellectual property law
• It focuses on real property

Property

• Refers to legally protected rights and claims to resources, including land and personal property
• Can be exchanged through contract law, and its violation may prompt a tort law suit
• Owned privately in capitalist societies, not by the government
• Property and land are often interchangeable in property or land law

Types of Property

• Real property, or real estate, includes land and structures directly attached, like fixtures
• Personal property, or chattels, can be moved from one location to another
• Intellectual property is intangible, including copyrights, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets

Property Right

• Proprietary, affecting third parties, unlike personal rights
• Views on property rights include the right to exclude and the bundle of rights
• The right to exclude is a property owner's right to prevent others from using or entering their property
• It can be restricted by encumbrances such as easements or deed restrictions
• The bundle of rights refers to the privileges afforded to a property owner, defined by law and social policy, such as possession, control, exclusion, enjoyment, and disposition

Justifications of Property Right

• Efficiently manages resources on a decentralized basis through expertise and specialization
• Powerful incentive for owners to productively use property, gaining from the investment
• Allows property exchanges and modifications
• Important source of individual autonomy, providing independence and identity
• Dispersed property allows individuals to exercise freedom against others or the government

Problems of Property Rights

• Can be harmful, including factory noise impacting neighborhoods
• Can lead to monopolies, allowing unfair advantages
• Can lead to commodification of certain domains, such as social relations
• Power to individuals that exacerbate inequality over time

Solutions to Problems of Property Rights

• Nuisance laws and zoning limit property use
• Competition and antitrust laws address monopolies
• Laws ban socially and ethically unacceptable commodification, such as organ sales
• Social inequality is mitigated by wealth redistribution through taxation

Legal Remedy

• Used by a court to enforce rights or impose penalties, compensating for wrongful acts
• Mitigates tort or crime effects
• Often pecuniary compensation as damages, or in substitution for specific performance or injunction to place the injured party in the same position if the breach had not occurred

Equity

• It is a body of law which is now administered concurrently with the common law
• Refers to rules from the Chancery Court in common law jurisdictions
• Is more flexible in dispute resolution where damages were unsuitable, applying fairness and justness

Equitable Remedy

• Developed by equity courts for flexible responses
• Is merged with legal relief, allowing courts to impose equitable relief
• Most remedies for contractual breach are equitable

Types of Equitable Remedies

• Injunction: A court order to perform or stop performing an act.
• Specific performance: An order requiring a party to perform contract terms
• Account of profits: A court order for a defendant to recover profits from a breach
• Estoppel is a doctrine that prevents retracting a promise
• Rescission: unmaking of a contract through cancellation

Terminology of Property Law

• Fixtures are physical property permanently attached to land

• Chattel (Fittings) are removable physical property

• Encumbrance is a charge or claim affecting property value and clarity of title

• Legal Charge is a creditor's right to take debtor's property for unfulfilled debt

• Equitable Charge is a creditor's right to judicial process for loan recovery

• Easement is a right to use another's property without possession

• An affirmative easement is the right to use another property for a specific purpose

• A negative easement is the right to prevent activity on another's property

• Covenant is a condition tied to land ownership that may run with the land

• Profits à prendre are a right to take natural resources from another's land

• Laches (undue delay) is a lack of diligence in pursuing a legal claim

• In Gross benefits and burdens are not tied to land ownership but to a particular person

• Appurtenant rights and restrictions go with the land but are not tied to a specific person

• Dominant land benefits from a restrictive covenant

• Servient land is burdened by the covenant

• Option allows the right to a insistence that the land is sold to them within a fixed period of time that not exceed 21 years

• Option fee is usually payable but the purchase price only becomes payable if the option is exercised

Aspects of property Law

• Title: Is it registered or unregistered?
• Types of title: Is it a legal or equitable title?
• Interest: What interests exist in the relevant land?
• Types of interest: Legal or equitable?
• Protection: Necessary steps taken to protect possible interests?

Placeholder names for Fictitious Estates Estates

• Blackacre and its variations, it is used fictitious estates in land
• More than one estate: Blackacre, Whiteacre, Greenacre, Brownacre

Title

• Intangible construct of rights in a property, with legal or equitable interest
• Rights may be separated and held by different parties
• Ownership proved by a deed, which is formal ownership evidence
• It is distinct from possession, which is simply a right to hold or control the land
• In many cases, possession and title may each be transferred independently of the other

Interest

• Something less than full ownership but legally enforceable and usually recorded
• Commonly includes those established in probated wills and trusts, in mortgages and judgement liens, and in recorded easements
• For example, a mortgaged property gives the lending bank interest but not title
• Such interest allows the bank to sell the property for repayment if the borrower defaults

Types of Title

• Two main categories: legal and equitable
• a legal title represents the legal ownership of a property
• It permits formal transfer from person to person with a deed
• can be registered (HM Land Registry) or unregistered
• an equitable title indicates a beneficial interest in property, granting right to legal title
• For example, an heir receives an equitable interest to acquire legal title and property ownership
• it is also called quiet title
• Perfect title results from merging legal and equitable titles, simplifying title transfer
• Also known as marketable title or paramount title

Legal Interest

• Right belonging to the legal owner, controlling property
• Property owner can use/enjoy as pleased
• Another is a legal mortgage
• Created to secure debt repayment by a mortgagor borrowing money from a bank to buy a property

Equitable interest

• Right in equity held by an equitable title, protected by equitable remedy
• An heir will have an equitable interest in the property which allow the heir to inherit the property
• Another example is an equitable mortgage where the bank is secured by taking possession of all the original title documents of the property, giving it the right to foreclose and sell the property in case of nonpayment

Common Equitable Interest Examples

• Easement: Right to use but not possess another's property
• Mortgage: interest over land for debt security

Rights of Property Owner

• Legal Title Owner: disposes property as wished, is entitled to benefits derived and can take legal action against parties that infringe upon his ownership rights
• Equitable Title Owner: no direct control of the property but is entitled to benefits derived/ can take legal action against the legal owner that infringes his equitable interests

Types of Rights

• Legal right: refers to the freedom of use, disposal, and enjoyment exercised by owners and occupiers of land; derived from human laws.

• Equitable right: it is a right guaranteed by equity (bank has the equitable rights to sell your property if you cannot pay the mortgage back); it the right to achieve equitable outcome of the legal rights holder

• Some rights can be either legal or equitable rights-

• Some are equitable such are such restrictive covenants

Bona Fide Purchaser (Equity's Darling)

• Innocent party who pays to purchase property without notice of any other party's claim to the title to that property
• Legal rights bind the world except the bona fide purchaser of a legal estate for full value without notice

Conveyancing

• Legal process of transferring legal title to real property from one person to another
• Includes a mortgage charge lease assent vesting declaration vesting instrument disclaimer release and every other assurance of property or of an interest by any other assurances
• A typical transaction has two major parts: The exchange of contracts and settlement

Phases of Conveyancing Transaction

• Equitable interests created to the buyer (after full paying)
• Settlement (legal title passed officially to the buyer), with equitable rights merging with legal title

Conveyancing Searches

• Uncover factors affecting buyer's enjoyment.
• A conveyancer will check the Title Register to confirm ownership and boundary
• Conduct local authority searches for restrictions of use, water flood risks and local industry information

Trust

• Legal entity created by a settlor.
• Allows separation of legal ownership and beneficial of interest
• Trustee manages trust property, while beneficiary is entitled to the derived benefit from trustee

Formalities of Conveyancing

• Contract to transfer a land interest but has to be done in writing + signed by both parties

• conveyance of a legal interest in land must be completed by deed, defined as signed and witnessed

• Conveying an equitable interest must be done by signed writing

• Express trust of land requires signed written evidence

• Subsequent conveyance of the beneficiary’s is a result of equitable writing like the transfer of land

• Exceptions to these requirements exits- including-

• Short leases of up to three years. operation of implied trusts

Possession

• It is the control a person intentionally exercises towards a thing, regardless of whether he has any right to do so.

Owner right to possessions

• A property owner has the right of possession and may assign that right wholly or partially to another who may then also assign the right of possession to a third party, subject to any conditions.
• Both control and intention must exist simultaneously to constitute possession.
• A person may obtain control before forming the intention to possess it later.

Types of Possession

• Corporeal possession: control of physical property (house)
• Incorporeal possession: control of immaterial property (copyright)
• Mediate possession: control through another person (agent)
• Immediate possession: direct physical possession
• Constructive possession: court deems control without physical control
• Adverse possession: acquisition of legal ownership by continuous occupation without owner's permission
• De facto possession: physical control without legal ownership
• De jure possession: legal possession regardless of physical possession

Possession Acquired Without Consent

• Occurs for properties without prior possession, found or taken from someone without consent. This gives rise to legal property right that can be claim back with good will

Tenure

• Concerns the legal regime where land is owned by the individual who holds it
• Determines use parameters, it can be determined by official laws and informal customs

Common Tenure Type

• Traditional tenure: Crown was the land owner of all, but tenant and lord were superior

Subinfeudation

• Whereby tenant hold land under any lord carved out new and distinct and turns by sub letting and aliening by the part of the subtenant Creates new hierarchy and lord-tenant relationship

Substitution

• Involves a tenant alienating land with new tenant without becoming his lord
• New tenure was not created now with the new tenant is a tenant with regional load
• Therefore tenors are equal in footing rather than our hierarchy

Doctrine of Tenure

• Divides land based on room and based on space, where describes how a person holds a freehold estate from the Crown

4th dimension of land ownership

• Covering not just as the land surface but also below the surface and above with extended period of time
• In short, the land that includes any tendure plus and also minerolas whether or not they part also includes
• Manor

Ad coeium Doctrine

• Property holder who not only have rights to the plot itself

Freehold

• Refer to the outright ownership of the property and the land which it stands Leasedhold is this method of owning properly for a fixed term but not land on which it stands One party with the ride to ocupyrant building another parties for giving term of time • •

Freehold

• Refers to outright ownership of the property and land which it stands for a state Leased-hold
• Method owns properties for a fixed amount of time but not land for which it stands this is not it CommonHold - A property ownership system where individuals indefinite freehold tenure with mutual responsibilities and ownership on

Estate

• Interest in real property and encompasses Land ownership to write for people to with land. In an asset, and interest a persons assets with legal rights

vs. Interest

State: refers to enjoyment- possession control disposition Interest can be sold like Land and the Land will have right out of the State, including the right of way

Doctrine

• Division Land based out in to authorize people and the Land and

estate and three types

The type of three main types Free hold

• Simple: Absolution and permanent
• Defeasible: One or more conditions (it is up to the deal)
• Conditional: the Grand Tour is intended, provided the Grand Tour exercises a right out of that

—Fee sample: Subjector executory means, where I will state is completed when it is. limited than transfer it to another.

• •

• Life time: A ownership property to be the duration of person life sale does change durations

Types Of Lease • A fixed - The list of the fixed amount and will expires and • Period tenancy: An extension from years to amount by their team. • Tenancy will a lease

Tenancy - A the of person of his to to someone

interest in the state?

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