Chapter 5

Question 1

4 Government powers

Answer 1

• police power
• eminent domain
• taxation
• escheat

Question 2

Police power

Answer 2

states can enact legislation to preserve order and protect the public

Question 3

Eminent domain

Answer 3

the government may acquire privately owned land for public use

Question 4

Taxation

Answer 4

taxes are imposed to raise government funds

Question 5

Escheat

Answer 5

ownership of real property may revert to the state when an owner dies with no will and no heirs

Question 6

Estate in land

Answer 6

the degree, quantity, nature, and extent of an owner’s interest in real property

Question 7

Freehold estates

Answer 7

this ownership interest lasts for an indeterminable length of time and can be passed along to heirs

Question 8

Life estate

Answer 8

based on the lifetime of a person and terminates when that individual dies

Question 9

Fee simple

Answer 9

An interest in property that allows its holder and his or her heirs to own and possess the property in perpetuity

Question 10

2 estates of inheritance

Answer 10

• fee simple

- defeasible fee estates

Question 11

2 types of life estates

Answer 11

• conventional life

- legal life estates

Question 12

Conventional life

Answer 12

created by acts of the parties

Question 13

Legal life estates

Answer 13

created by law

Question 14

Defeasible fee estates

Answer 14

A fee simple interest that can be terminated by the occurrence or non-occurrence of an event or condition.

Question 15

2 types of defeasible fee estate

Answer 15

• fee simple determinable

- fee simple subject to a condition subsequent

Question 16

Fee simple determinable

Answer 16

A fee simple interest in property that is terminated automatically upon the occurrence or non-occurrence of an event or condition

Question 17

Fee simple subject to a condition subsequent

Answer 17

A fee simple interest that can be terminated at the will of a future interest holder upon the occurrence or non-occurrence of an event or condition

Question 18

Pur autre vie

Answer 18

a life estate may also be based on the lifetime of a person other than the life tenant

Question 19

Dowery

Answer 19

the life estate that a wife has in real estate of her deceased husband

Question 20

Curtesy

Answer 20

an identical interest that a husband has in the real estate of deceased wife

Question 21

Encumbrance

Answer 21

a claim, charge, or liability that attaches to real estate

Question 22

Liens

Answer 22

a monetary charge against a property that provides security for a debt or obligation of the property owner (EX: taxes, mortgages, judgments, and mechanics lien)

Question 23

Deed restrictions

Answer 23

private restrictions that affect the use of the land

Question 24

Easements

Answer 24

the right acquired by one person to use another’s real estate

Question 25

Appurtenant easement

Answer 25

involved two adjacent and separately owned tracts; the owner allows the neighbor to use their land

Question 26

Servient tenement

Answer 26

The land burdened by an easement

Question 27

Dominant tenement

Answer 27

the land belonging to the holder of the easement appurtenant

Question 28

Easement in gross

Answer 28

a legal right to use another person's land for as long as the owner owns that land or the holder of the easement dies

Question 29

Easement by necessity

Answer 29

when an owner sells a parcel of land that has no access to a street except over the seller's remaining land

Question 30

Easement by prescription

Answer 30

if someone request to use another's land for a certain period

Question 31

5 conditions to claim a prescriptive easement

Answer 31

- Continuous - Adverse - Notorious - Open - Exclusive

Question 32

Easement by condemnation

Answer 32

created under the government right of eminent domain

Question 33

License

Answer 33

oral permission to enter another's property for a specific purpose

Question 34

Encroachment

Answer 34

the illegal extension of a building or fence that extends beyond the land of the owner

Question 35

Riparian rights

Answer 35

gives the owner of land adjacent to a non-navigable stream ownership of the land to the stream's midpoint

Question 36

Littoral rights

Answer 36

owners of land bordering commercially navigable lakes and oceans

Question 37

Doctrine of prior appropriation

Answer 37

this decides water use, the water belongs to the state and allocates to users who have obtained permission