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Property Law and Real Estate

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Full-Text Articles in Law

Fee Simple Failures: Rural Landscapes And Race, Jessica A. Shoemaker Jun 2021

Fee Simple Failures: Rural Landscapes And Race, Jessica A. Shoemaker

Michigan Law Review

Property law’s roots are rural. America pursued an early agrarian vision that understood real property rights as instrumental to achieving a country of free, engaged citizens who cared for their communities and stewarded their physical place in it. But we have drifted far from this ideal. Today, American agriculture is industrialized, and rural communities are in decline. The fee simple ownership form has failed every agrarian objective but one: the maintenance of white landownership. For it was also embedded in the original American experiment that land ownership would be racialized for the benefit of its white citizens, through acts of …


Reconciling Police Power Prerogatives, Public Trust Interests, And Private Property Rights Along Laurentian Great Lakes Shores, Richard K. Norton, Nancy H. Welsh May 2019

Reconciling Police Power Prerogatives, Public Trust Interests, And Private Property Rights Along Laurentian Great Lakes Shores, Richard K. Norton, Nancy H. Welsh

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

The United States has a north coast along its ‘inland seas’—the Laurentian Great Lakes. The country enjoys more than 4,500 miles of Great Lakes coastal shoreline, almost as much as its ocean coastal shorelines combined, excluding Alaska. The Great Lakes states are experiencing continued shorefront development and redevelopment, and there are growing calls to better manage shorelands for enhanced resiliency in the face of global climate change. The problem is that the most pleasant, fragile, and dangerous places are in high demand among coastal property owners, such that coastal development often yields the most tenacious of conflicts between public interests …


Property Rights In Augmented Reality, Declan T. Conroy Nov 2017

Property Rights In Augmented Reality, Declan T. Conroy

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Increasingly, cities, towns, and even rural communities are being slowly reshaped by a dynamic yet initially imperceptible phenomenon: the elaboration of augmented reality. Through applications that place virtual features over specific, real-world locations, layers of augmented reality are proliferating, adding new elements to an increasingly wide range of places. However, while many welcome the sudden appearance of arenas for battling digital creatures in their neighborhood or the chance to write virtual messages on their neighbor’s wall, the areas being augmented oftentimes are privately owned, thereby implicating property rights. Many intrusions, of course, are de minimis: an isolated, invisible Pikachu unexpectedly …


Murr V. Wisconsin, Nathan A. Burke Sep 2017

Murr V. Wisconsin, Nathan A. Burke

Public Land & Resources Law Review

In Murr v. Wisconsin, the Court redefined how to determine private property for a regulatory taking under the Fifth Amendment. Previously, courts have primarily relied on state property principles to determine the relevant unit of property for a regulatory takings claim. However, in this case, the Court adopted a three-factor standard to determine the landowner’s reasonable expectations regarding the treatment of their property. By relying on these factors rather than only on state laws, the Court created a litigation-specific definition of property that could potentially differ from state property boundaries. The three-factor standard may also give the government an …


Complexity's Shadow: American Indian Property, Sovereignty, And The Future, Jessica A. Shoemaker Feb 2017

Complexity's Shadow: American Indian Property, Sovereignty, And The Future, Jessica A. Shoemaker

Michigan Law Review

This Article offers a new perspective on the challenges of the modern American Indian land tenure system. While some property theorists have renewed focus on isolated aspects of Indian land tenure, including the historic inequities of colonial takings of Indian lands, this Article argues that the complexity of today’s federally imposed reservation property system does much of the same colonizing work that historic Indian land policies—from allotment to removal to termination—did overtly. But now, these inequities are largely overshadowed by the daunting complexity of the whole land tenure structure. This Article introduces a new taxonomy of complexity in American Indian …


A Framework For Understanding Property Regulation And Land Use Control From A Dynamic Perspective, Donald J. Kochan May 2015

A Framework For Understanding Property Regulation And Land Use Control From A Dynamic Perspective, Donald J. Kochan

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

Our land use control system operates across a variety of multidimensional and dynamic categories. Learning to navigate within and between these categories requires an appreciation for their interconnected, dynamic, and textured components and an awareness of alternative mechanisms for achieving one’s land use control preferences and one’s desired ends. Whether seeking to minimize controls as a property owner or attempting to place controls on the land uses of another, one should take time to understand the full ecology of the system. This Article looks at four broad categories of control: (1) no controls, or the state of nature; (2) judicial …


Tax Planning: Foreign Investment In United States Real Property, William H. Newton Iii Apr 2015

Tax Planning: Foreign Investment In United States Real Property, William H. Newton Iii

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.


Belk V. Commissioner: Land Substitutions In Conservation Easements, Morgan Davis Jan 2015

Belk V. Commissioner: Land Substitutions In Conservation Easements, Morgan Davis

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

No abstract provided.


Passive Takings: The State's Affirmative Duty To Protect Property, Christopher Serkin Dec 2014

Passive Takings: The State's Affirmative Duty To Protect Property, Christopher Serkin

Michigan Law Review

The purpose of the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause is to protect property owners from the most significant costs of legal transitions. Paradigmatically, a regulatory taking involves a government action that interferes with expectations about the content of property rights. Legal change has therefore always been central to regulatory takings claims. This Article argues that it does not need to be and that governments can violate the Takings Clause by failing to act in the face of a changing world. This argument represents much more than a minor refinement of takings law because recognizing governmental liability for failing to act means …


Court Of Appeals Of New York, Consumers Union Of United States, Inc. V. New York, Daphne Vlcek Nov 2014

Court Of Appeals Of New York, Consumers Union Of United States, Inc. V. New York, Daphne Vlcek

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.


Court Of Appeals Of New York, Harner V. County Of Tioga, Gerald C. Waters Jr. Nov 2014

Court Of Appeals Of New York, Harner V. County Of Tioga, Gerald C. Waters Jr.

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.


A Funhouse Mirror Of Law: The Entailment In Jane Austen's Pride And Prejudice, Peter A. Appel Sep 2014

A Funhouse Mirror Of Law: The Entailment In Jane Austen's Pride And Prejudice, Peter A. Appel

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.


Squatting: Lifting The Heavy Burden To Evict Unwanted Company, Shannon Dunn Mccarthy Apr 2014

Squatting: Lifting The Heavy Burden To Evict Unwanted Company, Shannon Dunn Mccarthy

University of Massachusetts Law Review

In the later part of 2012, news and media outlets gave widespread attention to the fact that people were living rent-free in homes across the United States while the property owners were left with the burden of evicting the unwanted company in order to gain rightful possession to their property. These stories were not isolated to low incomes areas. News broadcasts shed light on squatters making camp in high-end realty valued in the millions. At the same time, news outlets in the United Kingdom were reporting on the squatting topic, but with a different angle – a recent law criminalizing …


The Waters Are Rising! Why Isn't My Tax Basis Sinking? Why Coastal Land Should Be A Depreciable Asset In Light Of Global Warming And The Rise In Sea Level, Jason P. Oppenheim Mar 2014

The Waters Are Rising! Why Isn't My Tax Basis Sinking? Why Coastal Land Should Be A Depreciable Asset In Light Of Global Warming And The Rise In Sea Level, Jason P. Oppenheim

University of Massachusetts Law Review

Depreciation deductions are the Internal Revenue Code's method of allowing taxpayers to take deductions on long-term investments. Unlike normal deductions, depreciation requires the taxpayer to apportion the expense over the life of the asset. While most assets used for the production of income may be depreciated, the Internal Revenue Service and courts have never allowed land to be depreciated. The treatment of land as a non-depreciable asset is deeply rooted in the idea that it does not have a useful life -- it lasts forever. However, global temperature has risen rapidly over the past fifty years and is expected to …


The Abnormalcy Of Normal Delay, Kimberly Horsley Jul 2012

The Abnormalcy Of Normal Delay, Kimberly Horsley

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


Clearing The Path For Land Rights, One Road Block At A Time: How Peru’S Indigenous Population Can Assert Their Land Rights Against Peru’S Government, Alex Meyers Jan 2011

Clearing The Path For Land Rights, One Road Block At A Time: How Peru’S Indigenous Population Can Assert Their Land Rights Against Peru’S Government, Alex Meyers

Global Business Law Review

To the indigenous people of Peru, a strong relationship exists between land and livelihood. They depend on their land for the food they eat, the water they drink, and the resources they use to build their shelter. It follows that a threat to their property rights also threatens their survival; this past year, they have proven that they are prepared to defend their property rights with their lives. This Note shows that between the legal systems of Peru, the Organization of American States (OAS), and the United Nations (UN), Peru’s indigenous people should pursue their claim against Peru’s government in …


The Illusory Right To Abandon, Eduardo M. Penalver Nov 2010

The Illusory Right To Abandon, Eduardo M. Penalver

Michigan Law Review

The unilateral and unqualified nature of the right to abandon (at least as it is usually described) appears to make it a robust example of the law's concern to safeguard the individual autonomy interests that many contemporary commentators have identified as lying at the heart of the concept of private ownership. The doctrine supposedly empowers owners of chattels freely and unilaterally to abandon them by manifesting the clear intent to do so, typically by renouncing possession of the object in a way that communicates the intent to forgo any future claim to it. A complication immediately arises, however due to …


An Analysis Of Article 28 Of The United Nations Declaration On The Rights Of Indigenous Peoples, And Proposals For Reform, David Fautsch Jan 2010

An Analysis Of Article 28 Of The United Nations Declaration On The Rights Of Indigenous Peoples, And Proposals For Reform, David Fautsch

Michigan Journal of International Law

The purpose of this Note is two-fold: first, to demonstrate why the standards set out in Article 28 require further clarification, and second, to propose reforms (both inside and outside of the United Nations framework) that might benefit indigenous peoples claiming land rights.


Property Rights & The Demands Of Transformation, Bernadette Atuahene Jan 2010

Property Rights & The Demands Of Transformation, Bernadette Atuahene

Michigan Journal of International Law

Countries like those in Southern Africa will never emerge from the indomitable shadow of inequity and the serious threat of backlash unless real property is redistributed; but, the conception of property these countries explicitly or implicitly adopt can adversely affect their ability to redistribute. Under the classical conception of real property (the classical conception), redistribution is difficult because title deed holders are a privileged group who are given nearly absolute property protection. Strangely, the classical conception is ascendant in many transitional states where redistribution is essential. The specific question this Article addresses is: for states where past property dispossession has …


Land Use And Zoning Law: The Current Lay Of The Land, Philip C. Strother, Matthew R. Farley Nov 2009

Land Use And Zoning Law: The Current Lay Of The Land, Philip C. Strother, Matthew R. Farley

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.


Public International Law And Its Territorial Imperative, Dino Kritsiotis Jan 2009

Public International Law And Its Territorial Imperative, Dino Kritsiotis

Michigan Journal of International Law

Territory, or the concept of territory, thus asserts itself throughout the discipline of public international law, and its influences can be felt either through direct means or discrete.


Bordering Capabilities Versus Borders: Implications For National Borders, Saskia Sassen Jan 2009

Bordering Capabilities Versus Borders: Implications For National Borders, Saskia Sassen

Michigan Journal of International Law

A core argument of this Essay is that the capability to make borderings has itself switched organizing logics: from institutionalizing the perimeter of a territory to multiplying transversal borderings cutting across that perimeter. This switch is partly linked to the types of scalar shifts in the operational space of a growing number of systems. To the more economic systems already mentioned above, let me add such diverse instances as the policing of the illegal drug trade, the war on terror, the judicial and political struggle to protect human rights, and the environmental effort to reorganize transnational economic sectors, including the …


Real Estate Law, Richard W. Gregory, Lindsey Dobbs Chase Nov 2008

Real Estate Law, Richard W. Gregory, Lindsey Dobbs Chase

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.


Condominum Arrangements In International Practice: Reviving An Abandoned Concept Of Boundary Dispute Resolution, Joel H. Samuels Jan 2008

Condominum Arrangements In International Practice: Reviving An Abandoned Concept Of Boundary Dispute Resolution, Joel H. Samuels

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Article attempts to revive the consideration of condominium as a possible solution to contemporary boundary disputes. Part I describes specific historic instances of condominia and derives relevant lessons from each instance. Part II notes that some critics of condominium have in fact confused condominium with other forms of joint dominion over territory. This Part proceeds, therefore, to distinguish condominium from these other arrangements. Next, Part III discusses how experiences with common property regimes over common resources (such as water supplies) might inform the contemporary use of condominium. Finally, informed by lessons articulated in Parts I through III, Part IV …


Individual Aboriginal Rights, John W. Ragsdale Jr. Jan 2004

Individual Aboriginal Rights, John W. Ragsdale Jr.

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Article will, in Section I, deal with the legal development of the concept of individual aboriginal rights. It will focus on the Western Shoshone land claims before the Indian Claims Commission, and the federal government's trespass claims against the ranching operations of the redoubtable, irrepressible Dann sisters. Section II will explore the development and utilization of the doctrine of individual aboriginal rights in a series of cases involving the Dann sisters, subsequent Western Shoshone, and other efforts by native people to secure subsistence hunting and fishing rights and possession of or access to sacred sites. Section III will explore …


Re-Examining The Role Of Private Property In Market Democracies:Problematic Ideological Issues Raised By Land Registration, Joel M. Ngugi Jan 2004

Re-Examining The Role Of Private Property In Market Democracies:Problematic Ideological Issues Raised By Land Registration, Joel M. Ngugi

Michigan Journal of International Law

In the post-1989 world, the primacy of private property is taken for granted. The final fall of communism, it would seem, is an adequate commentary of the supremacy of private property arrangements in facilitating economic development. Debates pitting plan (with its associated appetite for communal or collective property) against market (with its avowed belief in private property) are now considered superfluous. As far as the "Western world" was concerned, it seemed that the task of persuading the rest of the world that private property is the key to efficient market performance and economic development had finally been accomplished. The only …


Land And Liberation: Lessons For The Creation Of Effective Land Reform Policy In South Africa, Hasani Claxton Jan 2003

Land And Liberation: Lessons For The Creation Of Effective Land Reform Policy In South Africa, Hasani Claxton

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Based upon the premise that land reform is essential to creating socio-economic equality, easing racial tensions and stemming the tide of violence in South Africa, this note will provide suggestions for effective land reform policy. To accomplish this, this Note will examine the paths taken by several other transitional African governments in land reform policy. It will attempt to extract practical lessons from their experiences and apply them towards the development of effective land redistribution policy in South Africa. Part I of this note will provide a historical overview of colonialism and land law in Africa. Part II will examine …


Just And Unjust Compensation: The Future Of The Navigational Servitude In Condemnation Cases, Alan T. Ackerman, Noah Eliezer Yanich Jun 2001

Just And Unjust Compensation: The Future Of The Navigational Servitude In Condemnation Cases, Alan T. Ackerman, Noah Eliezer Yanich

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court, in United States v. Rands, expanded the navigational servitude doctrine governing the federal government's power over land adjoining a navigable waterway by severely qualifying the government's Fifth Amendment obligation to compensate the landowner. This Article addresses the issue in the following ways: Part I surveys Congress' power to regulate navigable waters under the Commerce Clause. Part II summarizes the development of the navigational servitude doctrine and some of its inhibitory effects on waterfront development, especially under Rands. It explains the fundamental unfairness of the Rands principle and demonstrates why this constitutional rule …


Land Use Planning Over The Last Forty Years: Fighting Sprawl Through Smart Growth Planning, Richard J. Ansson Jr. Mar 2001

Land Use Planning Over The Last Forty Years: Fighting Sprawl Through Smart Growth Planning, Richard J. Ansson Jr.

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.


Adverse Possession Of Municipal Land: It's Time To Protect This Valuable Asset, Paula R. Latovick Dec 1998

Adverse Possession Of Municipal Land: It's Time To Protect This Valuable Asset, Paula R. Latovick

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The laws of several states regarding adverse possession of municipal land vary widely from providing no protection to granting complete immunity from such loss. Generally, states that permit adverse possession of municipally owned land do so without articulating a rationale for allowing such a loss of a valuable municipal asset. In this Article, Professor Latovick describes why the current state of the law is unsatisfactory. She then considers the public policies raised by the issue of adverse possession of municipal land. Professor Latovick concludes by proposing that states should adopt legislation expressly protecting all municipal land from adverse possession and …