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Articles 1 - 30 of 330
Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network
The Section 1031 Qualified-Use Requirement, Bradley T. Borden
The Section 1031 Qualified-Use Requirement, Bradley T. Borden
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Crypto In Real Estate Finance, R. Wilson Freyermuth, Christopher K. Odinet, Andrea Tosato
Crypto In Real Estate Finance, R. Wilson Freyermuth, Christopher K. Odinet, Andrea Tosato
Faculty Scholarship
Blockchain and cryptocurrencies have ushered in a digital gold rush. But all that glitters is not gold. The latest fad is the use of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to purchase and finance real estate. Typically, crypto real estate transactions begin with the transfer of title for a residential property into a dedicated business entity, such as a limited liability company. Thereafter, an NFT is ‘minted’ and used to represent the ownership interest in that entity. The real property is then marketed online specifying that, to acquire it, one simply purchases the relevant NFT via a blockchain transfer. Crucially, buyers are expected …
Rethinking Education Theft Through The Lens Of Intellectual Property And Human Rights, Peter K. Yu
Rethinking Education Theft Through The Lens Of Intellectual Property And Human Rights, Peter K. Yu
Faculty Scholarship
This Essay problematizes the increased propertization and commodification of education and calls for a rethink of the emergent concept of “education theft” through the lens of intellectual property and human rights. This concept refers to the phenomenon where parents, or legal guardians, enroll children in schools outside their school districts by intentionally violating the residency requirements. The Essay begins by revisiting the debate on intellectual property rights as property rights. It discusses the ill fit between intellectual property law and the traditional property model, the impediments the law has posed to public access to education, and select reforms that have …
Beneath The Property Taxes Financing Education, Timothy M. Mulvaney
Beneath The Property Taxes Financing Education, Timothy M. Mulvaney
Faculty Scholarship
Many states turn in sizable part to local property taxes to finance public education. Political and academic discourse on the extent to which these taxes should serve in this role largely centers on second-order issues, such as the vices and virtues of local control, the availability of mechanisms to redistribute property tax revenues across school districts, and the overall stability of those revenues. This Essay contends that such discourse would benefit from directing greater attention to the justice of the government’s threshold choices about property law and policy that impact the property values against which property taxes are levied.
The …
Personhood, Property, And Public Education: The Case Of Plyler V. Doe, Rachel F. Moran
Personhood, Property, And Public Education: The Case Of Plyler V. Doe, Rachel F. Moran
Faculty Scholarship
Property law is having a moment, one that is getting education scholars’ attention. Progressive scholars are retooling the concepts of ownership and entitlement to incorporate norms of equality and inclusion. Some argue that property law can even secure access to public education despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s longstanding refusal to recog- nize a right to basic schooling. Others worry that property doctrine is inherently exclusionary. In their view, property-based concepts like resi- dency have produced opportunity hoarding in schools that serve affluent, predominantly white neighborhoods. Many advocates therefore believe that equity will be achieved only by moving beyond property-based claims, …
Blockchain Real Estate And Nfts, Juliet M. Moringiello, Christopher K. Odinet
Blockchain Real Estate And Nfts, Juliet M. Moringiello, Christopher K. Odinet
Faculty Scholarship
Non-fungible tokens (popularly known as NFTs) and blockchains are frequently promoted as the solution to a multitude of property ownership problems. The promise of an immutable blockchain is often touted as a mechanism to resolve disputes over intangible rights, notably intellectual property rights, and even to facilitate quicker and easier real estate transactions.
In this Symposium Article, we question the use of distributed ledger technologies as a method of facilitating and verifying the transfer of physical assets. As our example of an existing transfer method, we use real property law, which is characterized by centuries-old common law rules regarding fractionalized …
Ad Coelum And The Design Of Property Rights, Joseph A. Schremmer
Ad Coelum And The Design Of Property Rights, Joseph A. Schremmer
Faculty Scholarship
This Article seizes on a specific doctrinal discussion in Eric Claeys’s Natural Property Rights to argue for the importance of understanding property doctrines in the context of a system of interconnecting rules and standards and not in isolation. The ad coelum doctrine provides that land ownership entails ownership of the suprajacent airspace as well as the underlying subsurface. As Claeys’s discussion highlights, scholars disagree about the significance of ad coelum both conceptually, as to what function the rule serves in defining and allocating property, and normatively. It is only by viewing ad coelum in the context of how it interacts …
Real Estate Trends: Title And Blockchain Technology, Laura M. Padilla
Real Estate Trends: Title And Blockchain Technology, Laura M. Padilla
Faculty Scholarship
This article discusses how blockchain technology could revolutionize real property title record-keeping, or not. It begins with a brief history of property transfers and title registry in the United States, followed by a basic overview of blockchain technology. Then it outlines how title is typically recorded today, including the role of traditional grantor-grantee indexes, plus less common tract indexes. It describes common title problems, often caused by human error, and exacerbated by an outdated system, together with an explanation of how blockchain and even tract indexes could eliminate or mitigate many title problems and simplify an antiquated system. The article …
The Restatement Of Property: The Curse Of Incompleteness, Thomas W. Merrill
The Restatement Of Property: The Curse Of Incompleteness, Thomas W. Merrill
Faculty Scholarship
The central feature of the American Law Institute’s Restatement of Property is that it remains incomplete after nearly seventeen volumes produced over nearly ninety years. The principal explanation for this is the proclivities of the Reporters who have been responsible for the first three iterations of this effort. Some of these proclivities, such as a commitment to meticulous research, have been commendable. But the incompleteness of the effort has reduced the influence of the property Restatement, relative to other Restatements like contracts and torts. The chapter concludes with a description of the Fourth Restatement of Property, now underway, and the …
Essential Property, Timothy M. Mulvaney, Joseph William Singer
Essential Property, Timothy M. Mulvaney, Joseph William Singer
Faculty Scholarship
For a sizable swath of the U.S. population, incomes and wealth are insufficient to cover life’s most basic necessities even in the most ordinary of times. A disturbingly resilient explanation for this state of affairs rests on the view that resource inequities are avoidable through self-reliance, a stance that invites observers to see people in poverty as morally suspect. This Article advances a counterview in contending that the widespread lack of essential resources did not simply arise naturally via individuals’ life choices but instead has been, in very meaningful part, created and perpetuated by our system of property laws.
The …
Compulsory Terms In Property, Timothy M. Mulvaney
Compulsory Terms In Property, Timothy M. Mulvaney
Faculty Scholarship
The state’s imposition of compulsory terms in property relations—such as habitability warranties binding landlords and tenants and minimum wages binding employers and employees—has long been conceived by analysts generally situated on the political right as an affront to individual freedom and inevitably harmful to the terms’ intended beneficiaries. This critique, though, seems to have special purchase in public discourse today not only within its traditional circle of supporters on the right but, at least in some instances, for a sizable number on the left as well. The bipartisan acceptance of this critique is serving as a substantial roadblock to a …
Ownership Concentration: Lessons From Natural Resources, Vanessa Casado-Pérez
Ownership Concentration: Lessons From Natural Resources, Vanessa Casado-Pérez
Faculty Scholarship
Concentration of ownership over land or other resources is both a sign and a cause of inequality. Concentration of ownership makes access to such resources difficult for those less powerful, and it can have negative effects on local communities that benefit from a more distributed ownership pattern. Such concentration goes against the antimonopoly principles behind the homesteading land policies and the legal regimes that regulate many natural resources. This Essay suggests that where concentration is a concern, one might draw lessons for reform by looking to the field of natural resources law, which employs a range of deconcentration mechanisms affecting …
The Fundamental Building Blocks Of Social Relations Regarding Resources: Hohfeld In Europe And Beyond, Anna Di Robilant, Talha Syed
The Fundamental Building Blocks Of Social Relations Regarding Resources: Hohfeld In Europe And Beyond, Anna Di Robilant, Talha Syed
Faculty Scholarship
In the hundred years since Hohfeld published his two “Fundamental Legal Conceptions” articles, the “bundle-of-rights” view of property associated with his work has come to enjoy the status of conventional wisdom in American legal scholarship. Seen as a corrective to lay conceptions and a predecessor “Blackstonian” view of property as the “sole and despotic dominion” of an “owner” over a thing, the central insight of Hohfeldian analysis is standardly taken to be that property is not a single “thing” but rather a “bundle of rights” with respect to things and persons. In recent years, however, this Hohfeldian view has come …
Sharing Your Home With Strangers: Common-Interest Ownership And Financing Options, Debra Bechtel, Crystal Liu, Ernira Mehmetaj, David Reiss
Sharing Your Home With Strangers: Common-Interest Ownership And Financing Options, Debra Bechtel, Crystal Liu, Ernira Mehmetaj, David Reiss
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Tiny Homes: A Big Solution To American Housing Insecurity, Lisa T. Alexander
Tiny Homes: A Big Solution To American Housing Insecurity, Lisa T. Alexander
Faculty Scholarship
“There’s no place like home,” said Dorothy. Yet, millions of people in the United States may face eviction, foreclosure, or homelessness in 2021 and beyond. America is on the brink of an unprecedented housing crisis in the wake of Covid-19. The federal government, and various states and localities, have taken actions to avert a housing crisis in the aftermath of Covid 19. While these actions have undeniably helped mitigate widespread foreclosure and eviction crises, they do not fully address the more fundamental American housing challenge—an inadequate supply of affordable housing at all income levels, a longstanding problem that Covid-19 has …
The In Rem/In Personam Distinction And Partitioning For Persistence, Shyamkrishna Balganesh, Leo Katz
The In Rem/In Personam Distinction And Partitioning For Persistence, Shyamkrishna Balganesh, Leo Katz
Faculty Scholarship
In the second of his two famous articles, Hohfeld seeks to do for the in rem/in personam distinction what he did so persuasively in his first for the terminology of rights, claims, duties, privileges, powers, immunities, and disabilities, which was to identify their essence, and to thereby describe the “natural kind” (in more modern parlance) lurking beneath the thicket of confused juristic rhetoric. The thesis in this second article, however, is a simpler and in some way more beguiling one than in his first. He claims that what the distinction between in rem and in personam jural relations comes down …
Property's Building Blocks: Hohfeld In Europe And Beyond, Anna Di Robilant
Property's Building Blocks: Hohfeld In Europe And Beyond, Anna Di Robilant
Faculty Scholarship
In the hundred years since Hohfeld published his two “Fundamental Legal Conceptions” articles, the “bundle-of-rights” view of property associated with his work has come to enjoy the status of conventional wisdom in American legal scholarship. Seen as a corrective to lay conceptions and a predecessor “Blackstonian” view of property as the “sole and despotic dominion” of an “owner” over a thing, the central insight of Hohfeldian analysis is commonly taken to be that property is not a single “thing” but rather a “bundle of rights” with respect to things and persons. In recent years, however, this Hohfeldian view has come …
Navassa: Property, Sovereignty, And The Law Of The Territories, Joseph Blocher, Mitu Gulati
Navassa: Property, Sovereignty, And The Law Of The Territories, Joseph Blocher, Mitu Gulati
Faculty Scholarship
The United States acquired its first overseas territory—Navassa Island, near Haiti—by conceptualizing it as a kind of property to be owned, rather than a piece of sovereign territory to be governed. The story of Navassa shows how competing conceptions of property and sovereignty are an important and underappreciated part of the law of the territories—a story that continued fifty years later in the Insular Cases, which described Puerto Rico as “belonging to” but not “part of” the United States.
Contemporary scholars are drawn to the sovereignty framework and the public-law tools that come along with it: arguments about rights and …
Modernizing Mortgage Law, Christopher K. Odinet
Modernizing Mortgage Law, Christopher K. Odinet
Faculty Scholarship
Modern mortgage law is designed for a world that no longer exists. The residential mortgage transaction of today looks nothing like it did during the formative period when the property laws governing mortgages were developed. What was once a local dealing between two individuals and largely for commercial or quasi-commercial purposes has now become a housing- centric financial transaction-turned-asset between multiple distant and often invisible parties that operate as part ofa national market. Yet, although the mortgage transaction has changed, mortgage law has not. Property law rules that once balanced the rights of mortgagors and mortgagees now completely fail to …
Exacting Inclusion: Property Theory, The Character Of Government Action, And Implicit Takings, Donald J. Smythe
Exacting Inclusion: Property Theory, The Character Of Government Action, And Implicit Takings, Donald J. Smythe
Faculty Scholarship
Recent takings cases challenging inclusionary housing ordinances tap into an ongoing controversy about whether government interventions in the housing market do more harm than good; but they also raise much more general questions about takings law. This Article uses the controversy raised by recent housing cases to probe the relationship between the Supreme Court’s regulatory takings jurisprudence and its exaction takings jurisprudence and to suggest a more coherent approach to implicit takings. The Court’s exaction takings jurisprudence is well-designed if it is applied appropriately. As a general matter, it encourages the mitigation of socially harmful nuisances, incentivizes developers to make …
Servitudes Done "Proper"Ly: Propriety, Not Contract Law, Elizabeth Elia
Servitudes Done "Proper"Ly: Propriety, Not Contract Law, Elizabeth Elia
Faculty Scholarship
The law of servitudes has changed dramatically in the last hundred years. Legal scholars have been successful in documenting these changes in case law, but less successful in articulating a unified set of principles that guide the current law of servitudes. One explanation that received significant attention is the idea that efficient recording systems in the United States have liberated property owners from the constraints of traditional property laws disfavoring servitudes and have allowed these owners the broader freedoms of contract law. However, this explanation, and the sweeping common law reforms that flow from it, have not resonated with courts. …
Reclaiming The Streets, Vanessa Casado-Pérez
Reclaiming The Streets, Vanessa Casado-Pérez
Faculty Scholarship
Pedestrians have been getting the short end of the stick in street policies and regulations. Drivers and cars dominate our streets even though automobiles’ externalities kill thousands of people every year. Given the environmental, health, safety, and community effects of cars, municipalities should embrace a policy that puts pedestrians at the center and produces more miles of wider, well-maintained sidewalks. Sidewalks make communities greener, healthier, safer, more socially connected, and even, wealthier. COVID-19 lockdowns have shown both the relevance of sidewalks, as well as the possibility of pedestrians regaining space currently allocated to cars by widening sidewalks.
This Essay identifies, …
When Drills And Pipelines Cross Indigenous Lands In The Americas, Guillermo J. Garcia Sanchez
When Drills And Pipelines Cross Indigenous Lands In The Americas, Guillermo J. Garcia Sanchez
Faculty Scholarship
From the Missouri River, passing through the Sonora Desert, all the way down to the Amazon Forest and the Andean Mountains, drills and pipelines are crossing over indigenous lands. In an energy-thirsty continent, there is no land left to spare, not even tribal land. Many of these energy infrastructure projects involve international investments that are protected by treaties and enforced by arbitral tribunals. At the same time, tribal communities have an internationally recognized right to receive prior and informed consultation before they are affected by projects of this nature. The Article focuses on the clash of rights between energy extraction …
Scotus In The Strait Of Messina: Steering The Course Between Private Rights And Public Powers, Donald J. Smythe
Scotus In The Strait Of Messina: Steering The Course Between Private Rights And Public Powers, Donald J. Smythe
Faculty Scholarship
The greatest challenge for any civilized society is to find the appropriate balance of rights and responsibilities between the individual and society. In the United States, the Supreme Court is the ultimate arbiter of the line between individual rights and governmental powers. The prerogatives and protections for private property rights help to define that line. The Supreme Court has developed two distinct bodies of constitutional jurisprudence bearing on the protections for private property, one under the doctrine of substantive due process and the other under the Takings Clause. But the appropriate balance has been difficult to achieve, and the Supreme …
Takings Localism, Nestor M. Davisdson, Timothy M. Mulvaney
Takings Localism, Nestor M. Davisdson, Timothy M. Mulvaney
Faculty Scholarship
Conflicts over “sanctuary” cities, minimum wage laws, and gender-neutral bathrooms have brought the problematic landscape of contemporary state preemption of local governance to national attention. This Article contends that more covert, although equally robust, state interference can be found in property, with significant consequences for our understanding of takings law.
Takings jurisprudence looks to the states to mediate most tensions between individual property rights and community needs, as the takings federalism literature recognizes. Takings challenges, however, often involve local governments. If the doctrine privileges the democratic process to resolve most takings claims, then, that critical process is a largely local …
The Promise And Perils Of Shared Equity Financing, David Reiss, Ernira Mehmetaj
The Promise And Perils Of Shared Equity Financing, David Reiss, Ernira Mehmetaj
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Classical Liberal Property And The Question Of Institutional Choice, Thomas W. Merrill
Classical Liberal Property And The Question Of Institutional Choice, Thomas W. Merrill
Faculty Scholarship
Richard Epstein’s property scholarship tracks his classical liberal theory of government. The classical liberal would permit state intervention to overcome collective-action problems but not to engage in redistribution of wealth. With respect to private law, Epstein harbors no clear preference for either the legislature or the courts as a source of limits on owners’ autonomy to overcome collective-action problems. With regard to public law, in contrast, Epstein would elevate the courts to a superior status relative to legislatures and would have courts enforce the classical liberal ideal as a matter of constitutional law. This article questions whether giving such power …
The Compensation Constraint And The Scope Of The Takings Clause, Thomas W. Merrill
The Compensation Constraint And The Scope Of The Takings Clause, Thomas W. Merrill
Faculty Scholarship
The idea I wish to explore in this Essay is whether the established methods for determining just compensation can shed light on the meaning of other issues that arise in litigation under the Takings Clause. Specifically, is it possible to “reverse engineer” the Takings Clause by reasoning from settled understandings about how to determine just compensation in order to reach certain conclusions about when the Clause applies, what interests in private property are covered by the Clause, and what does it mean to take such property?
The proposed exercise is positive or descriptive in nature rather than normative. The hypothesis …
Property Transitions, Michael A. Heller
Property Transitions, Michael A. Heller
Faculty Scholarship
Time plays a key role in this book. The last two chapters discussed two reasons why time matters to the life of property: over time, owners effect voluntary changes to property in order to carry out their life plans and the state imposes involuntary changes (from the individual owner’s perspective) in response to changing circumstances, shifting needs and wants, and revised public goals. For the state to function – and to remain justified on liberal principles – the government must have this ability to adjust ownership. However, state-initiated transitions to ownership – implemented through governments’ police and takings powers – …
Pore Space Property, Joseph A. Schremmer
Pore Space Property, Joseph A. Schremmer
Faculty Scholarship
Through modern technology we can use the void pore space of underground rock formations for a growing number of socially beneficial purposes. These run the gamut from unconventional oil and gas production to climate change mitigation. The common law of property and tort, however, has struggled to keep up with advancing technology in this area. Significant questions remain about the nature of property rights in pore space. Of particular interest are the limits, if any, on an owner’s right to use pore space for beneficial purposes when it extends beneath the land of another. For example, may A hydraulically fracture …