Real Property

Estates and future interests, concurrent ownership, landlord-tenant, easements and covenants, conveyancing, mortgages and recording acts.

1 chapter1 hour of reading32 practice questions

Read chapter 1 free Practice 10 questions

Chapters

1Present Estates and Future InterestsThe vocabulary that every other Real Property chapter uses: the present estates (fee simple absolute, the three defeasible fees, the life estate) and the future interests that follow them in the grantor (reversion, possibility of reverter, right of entry) and in grantees (vested and contingent remainders, class gifts, executory interests). The chapter then teaches the law of waste, the Rule Against Perpetuities with its California 90-year reform, the rule against restraints on alienation, and the California statutes that change the common-law labels.61 minFree

How California differs

From chapter 1

CACalifornia distinction

The Rule Against Perpetuities

General rule (federal / majority)

Common law: an interest is void when created if it might vest more than 21 years after every life in being has died. This stays the MBE default unless the question states a reform.

California

Prob. Code § 21205: the interest is valid if it satisfies the common-law test, or if it actually vests or fails within 90 years. Under § 21220 a court reforms an interest that fails both tests.

If the call is silent, apply the common-law rule and conclude “void”. Then add one sentence: most states now use wait-and-see or the 90-year USRAP rule, which may save the interest. If the call names California, add the 90-year rule and conclude under Prob. Code § 21205.

CACalifornia distinction

Fee simple determinable and possibility of reverter

General rule (federal / majority)

General law recognizes the fee simple determinable, which ends automatically, and the possibility of reverter, which lasts forever unless a marketable-title statute cuts it off.

California

Civil Code § 885.020 abolished both. A would-be determinable fee is a fee simple subject to a condition subsequent. A would-be possibility of reverter is a power of termination, which must be exercised. The power expires 30 years after the instrument is recorded, unless a notice of preservation is recorded (§ 885.030).

On the MBE and in a general-law essay, the determinable fee still exists. Write the California rule only when the call names California. In a Performance Test, apply only the Library.

Lessons

Michael Tanaka

Real Property lecturer

Real-estate transactions attorney (San Francisco), title and land-use work; Japanese-American, bilingual.

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