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Full-Text Articles in Law

Facing The Facts: An Empirical Study Of The Fairness And Efficiency Of Foreclosures And A Proposal For Reform, Debra Pogrund Stark Dec 2018

Facing The Facts: An Empirical Study Of The Fairness And Efficiency Of Foreclosures And A Proposal For Reform, Debra Pogrund Stark

Debra Pogrund Stark

Lenders view real estate foreclosures as too expensive and time consuming a process which needlessly increases the costs of making loans. Others complain that the foreclosure process fails to adequately protect the borrower's equity (the value of the property in excess of the debt secured by the property) in the mortgaged property.

This article tests these views by gathering new data on the fairness and efficiency of the foreclosure process. Based on the data collected (which confirms some assumptions but disproves others), the author proposes a reform of the foreclosure process to promote the interest of both lenders and borrowers. …


The Backwards Gesture: Historical Narratives In Carol Rose's Property Scholarship, Daniel J. Sharfstein Oct 2018

The Backwards Gesture: Historical Narratives In Carol Rose's Property Scholarship, Daniel J. Sharfstein

Daniel Sharfstein

Presented at the 2010 Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Conference.


On Bargaining For Development, Timothy M. Mulvaney Jul 2018

On Bargaining For Development, Timothy M. Mulvaney

Timothy M. Mulvaney

In his recent article, Bargaining for Development Post-Koontz, Professor Sean Nolon concludes that the Supreme Court’s recent ill-defined expansion of the circumstances in which land use permit conditions might give rise to takings liability in Koontz v. St. John’s River Water Management District will chill the state’s willingness to communicate with permit applicants about mitigation measures. He sets out five courses that government entities might take in this confusing and chilling post-Koontz world, each of which leaves something to be desired from the perspective of both developers and the public more generally.

This responsive essay proceeds in two parts. First, …


Progressive Property Moving Forward, Timothy M. Mulvaney Jul 2018

Progressive Property Moving Forward, Timothy M. Mulvaney

Timothy M. Mulvaney

In his thought-provoking recent article, “The Ambition and Transformative Potential of Progressive Property,” Ezra Rosser contends that, in the course of laying the foundations of a theory grounded in property’s social nature, scholars who participated in the renowned 2009 Cornell symposium on progressive property have “glossed over” property law’s continuing conquest of American Indian lands and the inheritance of privileges that stem from property-based discrimination against African Americans. I fully share Rosser’s concerns regarding past and continuing racialized acquisition and distribution, if not always his characterization of the select progressive works he critiques. Where I focus in this essay, though, …


Legislative Exactions And Progressive Property, Timothy M. Mulvaney Jul 2018

Legislative Exactions And Progressive Property, Timothy M. Mulvaney

Timothy M. Mulvaney

Exactions — a term used to describe certain conditions that are attached to land-use permits issued at the government’s discretion — ostensibly oblige property owners to internalize the costs of the expected infrastructural, environmental, and social harms resulting from development. This Article explores how proponents of progressive conceptions of property might respond to the open question of whether legislative exactions should be subject to the same level of judicial scrutiny to which administrative exactions are subject in constitutional takings cases. It identifies several first-order reasons to support the idea of immunizing legislative exactions from heightened takings scrutiny. However, it suggests …


Non-Enforcement Takings, Timothy M. Mulvaney Jul 2018

Non-Enforcement Takings, Timothy M. Mulvaney

Timothy M. Mulvaney

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 …


Reforming Property Law To Address Devastating Land Loss, Thomas W. Mitchell Jul 2018

Reforming Property Law To Address Devastating Land Loss, Thomas W. Mitchell

Thomas W. Mitchell

Tenancy-in-common ownership represents the most widespread form of common ownership of real property in the United States. Such ownership under the default rules also represents the most unstable ownership of real property in this country. Thousands of tenancy-in-common property owners, including members of many poor and minority families, have lost their commonly-owned property due to court-ordered, forced partition sales as well as much of their real estate wealth associated with such ownership as a result of such sales. Though some scholars and the media have highlighted how thousands of African-Americans have lost an untold amount of property and substantial real …


Property Law And Climate Change, Gregory S. Sergienko Mar 2018

Property Law And Climate Change, Gregory S. Sergienko

Greg Sergienko

This article discusses the issue of rules for acquiring property rights in natural resources, land use controls (such as restrictive covenants) and how they can impede the progress of environmentally friendly power sources when such sources are considered aesthetically offensive, and how property law should deal with uses of land that are inefficient and contribute to global warming. [excerpt]


A Model Statute For The Development Of Oil And Gas Interests Held Under Joint Ownership, Curtis Anderson Feb 2018

A Model Statute For The Development Of Oil And Gas Interests Held Under Joint Ownership, Curtis Anderson

Curtis Anderson

No abstract provided.


Appraising 9/11: 'Sacred' Value And Heritage In Neoliberal Times, Mateo Taussig-Rubbo Jan 2018

Appraising 9/11: 'Sacred' Value And Heritage In Neoliberal Times, Mateo Taussig-Rubbo

Mateo Taussig-Rubbo

On September 11, 2001, United Airlines Flight 93 — one of the four airplanes hijacked that day — crashed into a vacant parcel of land in rural Pennsylvania, killing all on board. For many, including family members of those killed in the attack and the Park Service that now manages the national memorial at the site, the former strip mine was transformed into ‘sacred’ ground. Unable to settle on a price with the landowner, in 2009 the government took the property through eminent domain. Focusing on the ongoing effort in United States of America v. 275.81 Acres of Land to …


Historic Preservation Law In A Nutshell (2d Ed.), Sara C. Bronin, Ryan M. Rowberry Dec 2017

Historic Preservation Law In A Nutshell (2d Ed.), Sara C. Bronin, Ryan M. Rowberry

Ryan Rowberry

The purpose of this book is to provide a concise, coherent reference for the emerging field of historic preservation law for lawyers, policymakers, planners, architects, and students alike. We consider preservation law to be “emerging” because it began to fully develop in the United States only in the last fifty years. Two key transition points happened at the federal level: the 1966 passage of the National Historic Preservation Act and the 1978 Penn Central Supreme Court decision, which upheld a landmarks law against a constitutional challenge and consequently encouraged other localities to adopt similar ordinances. (Of course, this book covers …


Review Of The Fight For Fair Housing: Causes, Consequences And Future Implications Of The 1968 Federal Fair Housing Act, Tim Iglesias Dec 2017

Review Of The Fight For Fair Housing: Causes, Consequences And Future Implications Of The 1968 Federal Fair Housing Act, Tim Iglesias

Tim Iglesias

This is a book review of The Fight for Fair Housing: Causes, Consequences and Future Implications of the 1968 Federal Fair Housing Act  ed. Gregory D. Squires (Routledge 2018).
In addition to summarizing and evaluating all 15 chapters this review highlights the two major contributions of the volume: (1) Some chapters (especially chapters 10, 11, 13, and 15) begin to articulate an argument that effective implementation of fair housing law is not just good for members of protected classes but valuable for everyone because it can help markets work better, promote democracy, and expand opportunity for all; (2) the chapters addressing …


Stategraft, Bernadette Atuahene, Timothy Hodge Dec 2017

Stategraft, Bernadette Atuahene, Timothy Hodge

Bernadette Atuahene

Although sometimes difficult to detect, governmental power abuses can have detrimental impacts. Property tax assessments provide an effective lens to examine this phenomenon because, given the complexity of calculating property tax assessments, it is difficult for citizens to know when local government has exceeded its legitimate taxing authority and crossed into the realm of illegal extraction. Michigan is an ideal case study because it protects property owners by making assessment-related power abuses more visible through a unique state constitutional provision: property tax assessments cannot exceed 50 percent of a property’s market value. Abuses have persisted nevertheless. Between 2011 and 2015, …


The Trespass/Nuisance Divide And The Law Of Easements, Kenneth A. Stahl Dec 2017

The Trespass/Nuisance Divide And The Law Of Easements, Kenneth A. Stahl

Kenneth Stahl

No abstract provided.


Homestead: A (New) Hope, Thomas E. Simmons Dec 2017

Homestead: A (New) Hope, Thomas E. Simmons

Thomas E. Simmons

A finely-tuned balancing of the free functioning of private and commercial enterprise against a family's interests in shelter and a home is at the heart of homestead exemption laws. In South Dakota's history, this balancing act has been displayed over a 145-year history in the form of legislative enactments, judicial decisions, and referendums. This history illuminates the expression of values against the dynamics of rule-making. A previously published article in this review, Prequel to Homestead, outlined South Dakota's homestead laws under the contemporary statutory framework and also considered the constitutional history of homestead laws leading up to South Dakota's …


The Sharing Stick In The Property Rights Bundle: The Case Of Short Term Rentals & Hoas, Donald J. Kochan Dec 2017

The Sharing Stick In The Property Rights Bundle: The Case Of Short Term Rentals & Hoas, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

Property owners are now more than ever exercising the “sharing stick” in their metaphorical bundle of property rights. This article examines the right to share one’s property with others as a branch, stemming from the inclusion stick, that itself grows out of the exclusion right held by property owners, along with the legal consequences of that characterization. 

The right to share, like other rights, can be given up when an owner joins a common interest community (CIC). However, when owners enter CICs and agree to HOA governance, they retain whatever residual parts of their ownership bundle they do not give …


The [̶T̶A̶K̶I̶N̶G̶S̶] Keepings Clause: An Analysis Of Framing Effects From Labeling Constitutional Rights, Donald J. Kochan Dec 2017

The [̶T̶A̶K̶I̶N̶G̶S̶] Keepings Clause: An Analysis Of Framing Effects From Labeling Constitutional Rights, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

Did you know that the “Takings Clause” was not called the “Takings Clause” by any court before 1955? That was the first time that any court of any jurisdiction referred to the provisions regarding takings of private property in either the federal or state constitutions under the label “Taking Clause.” Did you know that justices of the U.S. Supreme Court did not use that moniker “Taking Clause” in any opinion before 1978? Given this history, the phrase “takings clause,” whether an apt descriptor or not, certainly cannot be justified as the dominant way to refer to these provisions by contemporaneous …


Pride & Property: An Interdisciplinary Analysis Of Their Symbiotic Relationship, Donald J. Kochan Dec 2017

Pride & Property: An Interdisciplinary Analysis Of Their Symbiotic Relationship, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

Pride and property are mutually reinforcing, symbiotic concepts through which individuals express their identity in a biologically, economically, and psychologically driven manner that generates evolutionarily advantageous conditions. This Article is the first to extensively examine the correlative components of pride and property ownership. It is an interdisciplinary treatment of pride and property — engaging with law, economics, psychology, evolutionary biology, evolutionary psychology, and philosophy. The grossly under-studied “authentic”, achievement-oriented, and motivational variety of pride (as contrasted with the much-vilified “hubristic” kind) has recently been heralded as perhaps the most important human emotion for evolutionary purposes. The Article explains that authentic …


Playing With Real Property Inside Augmented Reality: Pokemon Go, Trespass, And Law's Limitations, Donald J. Kochan Dec 2017

Playing With Real Property Inside Augmented Reality: Pokemon Go, Trespass, And Law's Limitations, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

This symposium essay uses the popular game Pokémon Go as a case study for evaluating conflicts that arise when augmented reality is layered over the real property of non-consenting owners. It focuses on the challenges augmented reality technologies pose to the meaning and enforcement of formal and informal trespass norms, first examining physical trespass issues (and enforcement difficulties) associated with game players who sometimes break physical property boundaries.

The essay then undertakes a thought experiment regarding possible recognition of a new, different type of trespass—one to augmented space. Pollock and Maitland called trespass the “fertile mother of all actions,” often …


Public Lands: Pride, Place, Proximity & Power, Donald J. Kochan Dec 2017

Public Lands: Pride, Place, Proximity & Power, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

Where to place power regarding the ownership and management of public lands is a matter of longstanding debate, yet has been energized to a new degree with the advent of the Trump Administration. This essay does not seek to resolve complicated and intense matters within this debate nor propose any specific, best solutions to competing claims for proper placement of power. What this Essay does aim to do is explain some of the key metrics that should not be missed in the debates. These are metrics which could be advanced to support greater decentralization of power over public lands and …


Defining “Home” Through Homestead Laws,, Hannah Haksgaard Dec 2017

Defining “Home” Through Homestead Laws,, Hannah Haksgaard

Hannah Haksgaard

No abstract provided.