Law Commons^™

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 …

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 …

Seeing Like A Chocolate City: Reimagining Detroit’S Future Through Its Past, Sheila R. Foster

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This essay is part of an online symposium on Michelle Wilde Anderson's “The Fight to Save the Town.” In it, Anderson captures how the rise and fall of Detroit maps onto so many other important cultural, political, social, and economic moments of the twentieth century. As Anderson rightly notes, many of the ways in which the city’s history is commonly told represent a “white gaze on Detroit.” What this narrative often leaves out is the critical role of the Black middle and professional class in stabilizing or holding up the city during the period often associated with the city’s decline. …

Non-Enforcement Takings, Timothy M. Mulvaney

Faculty Scholarship

The non-enforcement of existing property laws is not logically separable from the issue of unfair and unjust state deprivations of property rights at which the Constitution's Takings Clause takes aim. This Article suggests, therefore, that takings law should police allocations resulting from non-enforcement decisions on the same "fairness and justice" grounds that it polices allocations resulting from decisions to enact and enforce new regulations. Rejecting the extant majority position that state decisions not to enforce existing property laws are categorically immune from takings liability is not to advocate that persons impacted by such decisions should be automatically or even regularly …

Reflections On The Persistence Of Racial Segregation In Housing, Alan C. Weinstein

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This article is Weinstein's reflection on the Annual Sullivan Lecture entitled Crossing Two Color Lines: Interracial Marriage and Residential Segregation in Chicago by Dorothy E. Roberts (2016).

INTRODUCTION My reflection on Professor Roberts' Sullivan Lecture poses two questions. First, how far have we come as a nation from the hypersegregated housing patterns of the 1930s through 1960s that Professor Roberts described in her lecture? Regrettably, the answer appears to be not far at all. Further, we are today faced with a second form of hypersegregation, one based on income rather than race. Second, why have we made so little progress …

Southern Highlands V. San Florentine, 132 Nev. Adv. Op. 3 (Jan. 14, 2016), Kristen Matteoni

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

Under the plain language of NRS 116.3116(4), “equal priority” is given to multiple HOA liens on the same property when those liens secure unpaid HOA charges and dues. When one lienholder of equal priority forecloses, all other liens are terminated. Nonetheless, all equal priority lienholders share in the foreclosure profit by either being paid in full when able to do so or, if sale profit is inadequate, through a pro-rata share of the proceeds. Thus, because the Foothills and Southern Highlands have equal priority liens, Foothills’ foreclosure terminated Southern Highlands lien, however Southern Highlands is entitled its allotment of the …

Zoning For The Mentally Ill: A Legislative Mandate, Deborah A. Schmedemann

Faculty Scholarship

Under the aegis of President John Kennedy, Congress first began to concern itself with the needs of the mentally ill over two decades ago. Bills providing for community mental health centers and congregate housing have appeared subsequently to attempt to expedite integration of the mentally ill into community life. These congressional mandates, however, have met with reluctance-if not hostility. While federal law makers have been the champion of deinstitutionalization, they have placed responsibility for implementation of their programs on the state and local levels. There, local governmental authorities have reacted defensively to exclude the mentally ill from their neighborhoods, primarily …