Unit 4: Interests in Real Estate
A landowner has divided much of his land into smaller parcels and has recently sold a tract near a nature preserve that is landlocked and cannot be entered except through one of the other tracts. The buyer of that property will probably be granted what type of easement by court action?
A) Easement in gross B) Easement by necessity C) Easement by prescription D) Easement by condemnation Explanation The answer is easement by necessity. An easement by necessity arises when there is no ingress or egress (entry or exit) from one piece of property without crossing over a parcel of land owned by another. An easement of necessity is not merely for convenience or imposed to validate a shortcut.
Government powers include police power, eminent domain, taxation, and
A) accretion. B) escheat. C) reliction. D) avulsion. Explanation The answer is escheat. Government powers include police power, eminent domain, taxation, and escheat.
A license is an example of a(n)
A) encroachment. B) personal privilege. C) easement appurtenant. D) restriction. Explanation The answer is personal privilege. A license is a personal, revocable right of use. It is temporary in that it can be withdrawn at will by the one who issued it.
A property on Main Street that was formerly a retail store will become the site of a new city hall, made possible by the government's power of
A) escheat. B) taxation. C) possibility of reverter. D) eminent domain. Explanation The answer is eminent domain. Eminent domain is the right of the government to acquire privately owned real estate for public use.
A statutory right that a family has in its residence is called
A) homestead. B) survivorship. C) curtesy. D) entirety. Explanation The answer is homestead. A homestead is a legal life estate that ensures that the home (or part of it) is protected from creditors during the occupants' lifetime.
A homestead is a legal life estate in real estate that is
A) leased by renters. B) occupied as the family home. C) used as a vacation home. D) a secondary residence. Explanation The answer is occupied as the family home. In many states, a portion of the area or value of this land is protected or exempt from judgments for debts other than those secured by the property.
Your neighbors use your driveway to reach their garage, which is on their property. Your attorney explains that ownership of the neighbors' real estate includes an easement appurtenant giving them the right to do this. Your property is the
A) license property. B) servient tenement. C) leasehold interest. D) dominant tenement. Explanation The answer is servient tenement. Your driveway is on the property over which the easement runs and is the servient tenement. The adjacent property owned by the neighbors is known as the dominant tenement.
The state's power to regulate land use is
A) not absolute. B) never questionable. C) absolute. D) never challengeable. Explanation The answer is not absolute. The state's power to regulate land use is not absolute, just like the rights of ownership.
A property owner who has the legal right to use a neighbor's land holds a(n)
A) police power. B) easement. C) encroachment. D) estate in land. Explanation The answer is easement. An easement is a right of use or passage, not of ownership—nor is it is an example of encroachment or the exercise of police power.
Regulations that govern the use, occupancy, size, location, and construction of real estate also fall within the government's police
A) power. B) authority. C) presence. D) enforcement. Explanation The answer is power. Regulations that govern the use, occupancy, size, location, and construction of real estate also fall within the government's police power.
An easement appurtenant
A) runs with the land. B) terminates with the sale of the property. C) is revocable. D) is a right-of-way for a utility company. Explanation The answer is runs with the land. An easement appurtenant can only be created if the adjacent properties have different owners. This easement runs with the land and transfers with the deed.
