Chapter 4

2 of 4 - In what year did Texas Legislature want to freeze each landowner's water use and rights with an overall annual usage cap?

1993

How is a trade fixture different from a fixture?

A trade fixture has been temporarily affixed to a landlord's real property in order to conduct business and may be detached and removed before, or upon surrender, of the leased premises.

Bundle of Rights

An important component of owning real estate property includes having a set of rights associated with that property. These rights are transferred from the seller to the buyer during a sale. It is important to remember that ownership of these rights belongs to the owner listed on the title of the property. A later section of this chapter provides an in-depth discussion of each of the rights associated with real property.

How are air rights delineated?

By imaginary vertical lines extended to infinity

Local Regulation

County and local government regulation focuses on land use control, control of improvements, and taxation. Land use regulations and ordinances control how all property within the jurisdiction may be developed, improved, demolished, and managed. County and local governments have the power to zone land, take over land for the public good, issue building permits, and establish the rules for all development projects. Have the power to levy real estate taxes.

What type of regulations does the federal government control?

Federal government regulations control the broad standards of real property usage, natural disaster, land description, and discrimination.

Financing

Financing regulations address lending requirements and provide standards for lending, underwriting, and loan management practices.

Federal Regulation

In regulating real property rights, the federal government is primarily concerned with broad standards of real property usage, natural disaster, land description, and discrimination. The federal government does not levy real estate taxes.

Inheritance

Inheritance regulation law addresses the logistics of transferring ownership of real property through an inheritance and the amount of tax due.

Insurance

Insurance regulations provide insurance requirements, policies, and the process of filing claims associated with real property.

In the event that the attachment criterion is insufficient to determine whether an article of property is real or personal, a court may apply one or more of the following additional criteria:

Intention Adaption Functionality Relationship of parties Sale or lease contract provisions

Legal Descriptions

It is universally required that a property deed includes a written legal description of the property. The most common legal description formats used in the United States are lot and block, metes and bounds, and The U.S. Public Land Survey System.

How does judicial regulation differ from federal, state, and local regulations?

Judicial regulations use case and common law rulings to influence regulations. On the other hand, federal, state, and local regulations are created through statutory law.

What types of regulations do local governments mainly address?

Local government regulations focus on land use control, control of improvements, and taxation. Notably, county and local governments are responsible for levying real property taxes.

What are the two general characteristics of real property?

Physical and economic characteristics

Growing plants may be either real or personal property. How are they differentiated?

Plants and crops that grow naturally, without requiring anyone's labor or machinery, are considered real property. Plants and crops requiring human intervention and labor are called emblements which, despite their attachment to land, are considered personal property

Describe the two classifications of property.

Real property is ownership of real estate and the bundle of rights associated with owning the real estate. Personal property is ownership of anything that is not real estate, and the rights associated with owning the personal property item.

What does permanence of investment mean?

Resources and capital used to build an improvement represent a large, fixed capital investment that is typically gives stable returns.

What are the five important rights associated with owning a parcel of real estate?

Right to possession Right to use Right to transfer Right to encumber Right to exclude

State Regulation

State governments are the primary regulatory entities of the real estate business. State governments establish real estate license laws and qualifications. In addition, state governments have established real estate commissions to administer license laws and oversee activities of licensees. States have the power to levy real estate taxes, but generally pass this power to local government.

Land can be laterally divided into what classifications of rights?

Surface rights Subsurface rights Air rights

Taxation

Taxation regulations deal with all aspects of taxing real property. Real property taxation occurs at the local levels, so amounts differ throughout the same state, city, and county.

4 of 4 - Described by the state as "the primary source of water for south central Texas and therefore vital to the residents, industry, and ecology of the region, the State's economy, and the public welfare" is known as:

The Edwards aquifer

Judicial Regulation

The judicial system exerts an influence on real estate ownership and use through decisions based on case law and common law, as distinguished from statutory law. Case law consists of decisions based on judicial precedent. Common law is the collective body of law deriving from custom and generally accepted practice in society.

Intangible property

abstract, having no physical existence in itself, other than as evidence of one's ownership interest.

Real property rights

consist of the bundle of rights associated with owning a parcel of real estate. Foremost of these rights is the right of possession.

Emblements

despite their attachment to land, are considered personal property. If an emblement is owned by a tenant farmer, the tenant has the right to the harvested crop, whether the tenant's lease is active or expired. If the tenant grew the crop, it is his or her personal property, and the landlord cannot take it.

Physical characteristics include

immobility, indestructibility, and heterogeneity.

A parcel, or tract

is a portion of land delineated by boundaries.

Severance

is the conversion of real property to personal property by detaching it from the real estate, such as by cutting down a tree, detaching a door from a shed, or removing an antenna from a roof.

Trade fixtures, or chattel fixtures

items of a tenant's personal property that the tenant has temporarily affixed to a landlord's real property in order to conduct business. Trade fixtures may be detached and removed before, or upon surrender, of the leased premises. Should the tenant fail to remove a trade fixture, it may become the property of the landlord through accession. Thereafter, the fixture is considered real property.

The legal concept of real estate encompasses:

land all man-made structures that are "permanently" attached to the land

improvements

man-made structures attached to the land

property

not only the item that is owned but also a set of rights to the item enjoyed by the owner.

Affixing

or attachment, is the act of converting personal property to real property by attaching it to the real estate, such as by assembling a pile of bricks into a barbecue pit, or constructing a boat dock from wood planks.

Tangible property

physical, visible, and material

The "________________" allows landowners to pump as much water from below their ground's surface, regardless of whether or not it may deplete their neighbor's own groundwater supply.

rule of recapture

The four economic characteristics are

scarcity, improvements, permanence of investment, and area preference.

Government entities regulate the following aspects of real property interests:

the bundle of rights: possession, usage, transfer, encumbering and exclusion legal descriptions financing insurance inheritance taxation

The legal concept of land encompasses:

the surface area of the earth everything beneath the surface of the earth extending downward to its center all natural things permanently attached to the earth the air above the surface of the earth extending outward to infinity

3 of 4 - The ________________ defines state water as "the water of ordinary flow, underflow, and tides of every flowing river, natural stream, and lake..."

water code