Real Property—Mini Outline

The MBE spreads Property fairly evenly (~⅕ each across ownership, rights in land, contracts/mortgages, titles, and more), so this one rewards knowing all of it. Rule-heavy—good news, because it rewards memorized frameworks.

1. Present estates

• Fee simple absolute—full ownership. Fee simple determinable ("so long as," "until")—ends automatically, leaving a possibility of reverter. Fee simple subject to condition subsequent ("but if," "provided that")—grantor has a right of entry and must act. Fee simple subject to executory limitation—passes to a third party.
• Life estate—measured by a life; the life tenant may use the land but owes the remainderman a duty against waste (affirmative, permissive, ameliorative).

2. Future interests & RAP

• In the grantor: reversion, possibility of reverter, right of entry.
• In a third party: remainders—vested, vested subject to open (class gifts + the rule of convenience), or contingent (unascertained taker or unmet condition)—and executory interests (shifting or springing), which cut short a prior estate.
• Rule Against Perpetuities: an interest is void unless it must vest, if at all, within 21 years of a life in being at creation. Applies to contingent remainders, executory interests, vested remainders subject to open, options, and rights of first refusal. Classic traps: fertile octogenarian, unborn widow, slothful executor. Many states reform (wait-and-see, USRAP 90-year, cy pres).

3. Concurrent estates

• Tenancy in common—separate, alienable shares, no survivorship (the default). Joint tenancy—right of survivorship; needs the four unities + clear survivorship language; a conveyance (or, in some states, a mortgage in a title-theory state) severs it. Tenancy by the entirety—spouses, with survivorship; neither can unilaterally convey or encumber.
• Rights of cotenants: each may possess the whole; no rent owed to a co-tenant absent ouster; contribution for taxes/mortgage; and any tenant may seek partition (in kind or by sale).

4. Landlord-tenant

• Tenancies: term of years, periodic (notice to terminate), tenancy at will, and tenancy at sufferance (holdover).
• Implied covenant of quiet enjoyment; residential leases carry an implied warranty of habitability (non-waivable). A serious, landlord-caused loss of use can be constructive eviction (notice, and the tenant must vacate).
• Assignment vs. sublease: an assignee is in privity of estate (liable on covenants that run with the lease); a sublessee is not directly liable to the landlord. Landlords must (majority) mitigate after abandonment.

5. Easements, covenants & servitudes

• Easements arise by express grant/reservation, implication (prior use), necessity, or prescription (like adverse possession). Appurtenant easements run with the land; easements in gross benefit a person. Terminated by release, merger, abandonment, or the end of necessity.
• Real covenants (money damages) require intent, notice, touch-and-concern, and horizontal + vertical privity; equitable servitudes (injunction) require intent, notice, and touch-and-concern—no privity. The common-scheme doctrine can imply reciprocal servitudes in a subdivision.
• Also: profits, licenses (revocable), and fixtures.

6. Adverse possession

• Possession that is open and notorious, actual, hostile (without permission), exclusive, and continuous for the statutory period ripens into title. Tacking across successive possessors requires privity; the statute tolls for the true owner's disability at the start.

7. Conveyancing & recording

• Two stages: the land-sale contract (Statute of Frauds, implied marketable title at closing, equitable conversion / risk of loss) and the deed at closing—a valid writing with words of conveyance, signed by the grantor, and delivered and accepted. The contract's title promises merge into the deed.
• Deed types & covenants: general warranty (all six covenants), special/limited warranty, and quitclaim. Present covenants (seisin, right to convey, against encumbrances) breach at delivery; future covenants (quiet enjoyment, warranty, further assurances) breach later.
• Recording acts: race (first to record wins), notice (a later BFP without notice wins), and race-notice (a later BFP without notice who records first wins). A bona fide purchaser pays value and takes without notice (actual, constructive/record, or inquiry); a donee can't be a BFP. Watch the shelter rule and wild deeds.

8. Mortgages & security interests

• A mortgage is a security interest in land (note + mortgage). On transfer, a buyer who assumes is personally liable; one who takes subject to is not, though the land stays liable. Watch due-on-sale clauses.
• Priority is first in time (subject to recording acts); a purchase-money mortgage takes priority over earlier claims against the buyer. Foreclosing a senior lien wipes out juniors (who share any surplus); foreclosing a junior leaves seniors intact. The debtor may redeem—equitable (before sale, can't be clogged) and, in some states, statutory (after sale). A shortfall is a deficiency.