General Vocab Flashcards
Represents evidence of the transfer
Deed
Right to sell
Legal Title
Right to use and possess
Equitable Title
A provision in a written mortgage, note, bond, or conditional sales contract that in the event of default, the whole amount of the principal and the interest may be declared due and payable at once.
Acceleration clause
Title to improvements or additions to real property is acquired as a result of the accretion of alluvial deposits along the banks of streams or as a result of the annexation of fixtures.
Accession
An increase or addition to land by the deposit of sand or soil washed up naturally from a river, lake, or sea.
Accretion
The actual, visible, hostile, notorious, exclusive, and continuous possession of another’s land under a claim to title. Possession for a statutory period may be a means of acquiring title.
Adverse Possession
The act of transferring property to another. Alienation may be voluntary, such as by sale, or involuntary, such as through eminent domain.
Alienation
The actual soil increase resulting from accretion.
Alluvion
The liquidation of a financial burden by installment payments, which include principal and interest.
Amortization
Belonging to; incident to; annexed to.
Appurtenant
The transfer in writing of rights or interest in a bond, mortgage, lease, or other instrument.
Assignment
A deed that carries with it no warranties against liens or other encumbrances but that does imply the grantor has the right to convey title. The grantor may add warranties to the deed at his or her discretion.
Bargain and sale deed
A permanent reference mark or point established for use by surveyors when measuring differences in elevation.
Benchmark
The person for whom a trust operates or in whose behalf the income from a trust estate is drawn. 2. A lender who lends money of real estate and takes back a note and deed of trust from the borrower.
Beneficiary
A provision in a will providing for the distribution of personal property.
Bequest
A written instrument given to pass title to personal property.
Bill of sale
A mortgage that covers more than one parcel of real estate and provides for each parcel’s partial release from the mortgage lien on repayment of a definite portion of the debt.
Blanket mortgage
The illegal practice of inducing homeowners to sell their properties by making representations regarding the entry, or prospective entry, of minority persons into the neighborhood.
Blockbusting
Deserted, defunct, and derelict toxic industrial sites in need of renewal. Federal legislation has diminished the innocent landowner’s liability exposure and provided the landowner the opportunity to expense cleanup costs rather than capitalize them.
Brownfields
A strip of land that separates one land use from another.
Buffer zone
A Latin phrase meaning, “let the buyer beware.”
Caveat emptor
The document generally given to a purchaser at a tax foreclosure sale. A certificate of sale does not convey title; generally, it is an instrument certifying that the holder may receive title to the property after the redemption period has passed and that the holder paid the property taxes for that interim period.
Certificate of sale
The statement of opinion on the status of the title to a parcel of real property, based on an examination of specified public records.
Certificate of title
The succession of conveyances from some accepted starting point by which the present holder of real property dervies his or her title.
Chain of title
Community planning tool that welcomes and improves public participation in discussions about a community’s future growth and development.
Charrettes
Personal property.
Chattels
Used as a factor in determining adverse possession claims. Adversely occupying another’s real estate for a statutory period of time may create a claim of right.
Color of title
The illegal act of a real estate broker who mixes the money of other people with that of his or her own; brokers are required by law to maintain a separate trust account for other parties’ funds held temporarily by the broker.
Commingling
A system of property ownership based on the theory that each spouse has an equal interest in the property acquired by the efforts of either spouse during marriage.
Community property
A method of determining the depreciation of a multi-building property using the average rate at which all the buildings are depreciating.
Composite depreciation
A judicial or administrative proceeding or process to exercise the power of eminent domain.
Condemnation
Securitized mortgages sold on the secondary market that meet certain requirements established by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Conforming mortgages
Acts by the landlord that so materially disturb or impair the tenant’s enjoyment of the leased premises that the tenant is effectively forced to move out and terminate the lease without liability for any further rent. 2. A purchaser’s inability to obtain clear title.
Constructive eviction
Notice given to the world by recorded documents. All persons are charged with knowledge of such documents and their contents, whether or not they have actually examined them. Possession of property also is considered constructive notice that the person in possession has an interest in the property.
Constructive notice
A contract for the sale of real estate under which the sale price is paid in periodic installments by the purchaser, who is in possession and holds equitable title, although actual title is retained by the seller until final payment.
Contract for deed
A contract for sale of real estate in which the consideration is paid wholly or partly in property.
Contract for exchange of real estate
An appraising principle where the value of a property’s component parts are measured by their effect on the selling price of the whole. Appraisers use sold properties as “paired sales” to isolate component parts and to identify their monetary contribution to the whole.
Contributory value
A loan that is not insured or guaranteed by a government agency.
Conventional loan
A written instrument that evidences transfer of some interest to real property from one person to another.
Conveyance
A life estate, usually a fractional interest, given by some states to the surviving husband in real estate owned by his deceased wife. Most states have abolished curtesy.
Curtesy
A written instrument that when executed and delivered conveys title to, or an interest in, real estate.
Deed
A process by which the mortgagor can avoid foreclosure. Mortgagor gives a deed to mortgagee when mortgagor is in default according to terms of mortgage.
Deed in lieu of foreclosure
The instrument used to reconvey title to a trustor under a deed of trust once the debt has been satisfied.
Deed of reconveyance
An instrument used to create a lien by which the mortgagor conveys her or his title to a trustee, who holds it as security for the benefit of the noteholder.
Deed of trust
The clauses in a deed limiting the future users of the property. Deed restrictions may impose a variety of limitations and conditions, such as limiting the density of buildings, dictating the types of structures that can be erected, and preventing buildings from being used for specific purposes or from used at all.
Deed restrictions
A clause used in leases or mortgages that cancels a specified right on the occurrence of a certain condition, such as cancellation of a mortgage on repayment of the mortgage loan.
Defeasance clause
A personal judgment levied against the mortgagor when a foreclosure sale does not produce sufficient funds to to pay the mortgage debt in full.
Deficiency judgment
The hereditary succession of an heir to the property of a relative who dies intestate.
Descent
A fee-simple estate in which the property automatically reverts to the grantor on the occurrence of a specified event or condition.
Determinable fee estate
A transfer of real estate by will or last testament. The donor is the devisor and the recipient is the devisee.
Devise
An added loan free charged by a lender to make the yield on a lower-than-market-value loan competitive with higher-interest loans.
Discount points
The rate of interest a commercial bank must pay when it borrows from its federal reserve bank. Consequently, the discount rate is the rate of interest the banking system carries within its own framework. Member banks may take certain promissory notes that they have received from customers and sell them to their district federal reserve bank for less than face value. With the funds received, the banks can make further loans. Changes in the discount rate may cause banks and other lenders to reexamine credit policies and conditions.
Discount rate
A property that includes in its ownership the appurtenant right to use an easement over another’s property for a specific purpose.
Dominant tenement
The legal right or interest recognized in some states that a wife acquires in the property her husband held or acquired during their marriage. During the lifetime of the husband, the right is only a possibility of an interest; on his death it can become an interest in land.
Dower
The use of unlawful constraint that forces action or inaction against a person’s will.
Duress
A mortgage loan on approved property made to a qualified veteran by an authorized lender and guaranteed by the Department of Veterans Affairs to limit possible loss by the lender.
DVA loan
A right to use the land of another for a specific purpose, such as for a right-of-way or utilities; an incorporeal interest in land. An easement appurtenant passes with the land when conveyed.
Easement
Easement by necessity
Easement by necessity
An easement acquired by continuous, open, uninterrupted, exclusive, and adverse of the property for the period of time prescribed by state law.
Easement by prescription
An easement that is not created for the benefit of any land owned by the owner of the easement but that attaches personally to the easement owner.
Easement in gross
The period of time over which an improved property will earn an income adequate to justify its continued existence.
Economic life
Growing crops that are produced annually through the tenant’s own care and labor and that she or he is entitled to take away after the tenancy is ended. Emblements are regarded as personally property even prior to harvest, so if the landlord terminates the lease, the tenant may still reenter the land and remove such crops. If the tenant terminates the tenancy voluntarily, however, she or he generally is not entitled to the emblements.
Emblements
A fixture or structure, such as a wall or fence, that invades a portion of a property belonging to another.
Encroachment
Any lien that may diminish the value of the property, such as a mortgage, tax, or judgment lien; easement; restriction on the use of the land; or an outstanding dower right.
Encumbrance
The interest held by a vehicle under a contract for deed or an installment contract; the equitable right to obtain absolute ownership to property when legal title is held in another’s name.
Equitable title
The gradual wearing away of land by water, wind, and general weather conditions; the diminishing of property caused by the elements.
Erosion
The reversion of property to the state in the event that its owner dies without leaving a will and has no heirs to whom the property may pass by lawful descent.
Escheat
An interest for a certain, exact period of time in property leased for a specified consideration.
Estate for years
The degree, quantity, nature, and extent of interest that a persona has in real property.
Estate in land
An estate owned by one person.
Estate in severalty
A legal instrument executed by a mortgagor showing the amount of the unpaid balance due on a mortgage and stating that the mortgagor has no defenses or offsets against the mortgagee at the time of execution of the certificate.
Estoppel certificate
Legally allowed necessities, such as the right of a tenant to use timber on leased property to support a minimum need for fuel or repairs.
Estovers
Latin, meaning “and husband”.
Et vir
Latin, meaning “and wife”.
Et ux / Et uxor
A proof of ownership of property, which is commonly a certificate of title, a title insurance policy, an abstract of title with lawyer’s opinion, or a Torrens registration certificate.
Evidence of title
A federally chartered corporation created to provide a secondary mortgage market for conventional loans (Freddie Mac).
Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (FHLMC)
A federal administrative body created by the National Housing Act in 1934 to encourage improvement in housing standards and conditions, to provide an adequate home-financing system through the insurance of housing mortgages and credit, and to exert a stabilizing influence on the mortgage market.
Federal Housing Administration (FHA)
is the popular name for this federally chartered corporation, which creates a secondary market for existing mortgages. FNMA does not loan money directly, but rather buys DVA, FHA, and conventional loans.
Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA)
The maximum possible estate or right of ownership of real property continuing forever.
Fee-simple estate
An article that was once personal property but has been so affixed to real estate that it has become real property.
Fixture
An estate in land in which ownership is for an indeterminate length of time, in contrast to a leasehold estate.
Freehold estate
The impairment of functional capacity or efficiency; the inability of a structure to perform adequately the function for which it currently is employed. Functional obsolescence reflects the loss in value brought about by factors that affect the property, such as overcapacity, inadequacy, or changes in the art.
Functional obsolescence
A lien on all real and personal property owned by a debtor.
General lien
A deed that states that the title conveyed therein is good from the sovereignty of the soil to the grantee therein and that no one else can successfully claim the property. This type of deed contains several specific warranties sometimes referred to as the English Covenants of Title.
General warranty deed
