Property Law and Real Estate Commons^™

Report - Paying For The Past: Addressing Past Property Violations In South Africa, Bernadette Atuahene

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Why Mortgage "Formalities" Matter, David A. Dana

Faculty Working Papers

This Article argues that adherence to mortgage formalities regarding foreclosure is valuable for expressive reasons and also as a potential deterrent to future undesirable underwriting and securitization practices. The Article reviews how some courts have in effect written procedural requirements for foreclosure out of the law, and asks why these courts have done so and whether lenders' behavior might have been improved during this housing crisis had the state courts uniformly afforded equal respect to the legal rights of homeowners and those of lenders.

Is A Taking Something Lost Or Something Gained? Contrasting The Loss/Gain Focus Of Takings Cases In The United States And Australia, Duane L. Ostler

Barry Law Review

No abstract provided.

Property Rights, The "Gang Of Four" & The Fifth Vote: Stop The Beach From Renourishment, Inc. V. Florida Department Of Environmental Protection (U.S. Supreme Court 2010), Garrett Power

Faculty Scholarship

In 2010 The U.S. Supreme Court decided the case of Stop the Beach Renourishment v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection (SBR v. Fla. EPA). Justice Antonin Scalia announced the judgment of the Court. All Justices agreed that Florida had not violated the Takings Clause of the Federal Constitution’s Fifth Amendment. But then in a plurality opinion Justice Scalia joined by the Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas and Alito proposed profound changes in the law of “regulatory takings.” As the spokesman for the Court’s property rights absolutists Scalia advanced two novel legal propositions. First he argued that federal courts …

Judicial Takings Or Due Process, Eduardo M. Peñalver, Lior Jacob Strahilevitz

Cornell Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Adirondack Park Land Use And Development Plan And Vermont's Act 250 After Forty Years, 45 J. Marshall L. Rev. 417 (2012), John S. Banta

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Identifying Values In Land Use Regulation, Adam J. Macleod

Scholarly Articles

The rules governing the lawfulness of land use decisions are a mess. State enabling acts elide distinguishable and plural objectives of the police powers. Courts — especially state courts — generally fail to distinguish between different types of challenges and different types of land use regulatory actions. As a result, courts typically resort to the deferential position that the Supreme Court adopted in Village of Euclid, Ohio v. Ambler Realty Co., even where that standard of review is wholly inappropriate.

Meanwhile, the evidence is mounting that local governments often exercise their land use regulatory authority in arbitrary, irrational, and discriminatory …

Against Mushy Balancing Tests In Blight Condemnation Jurisprudence, Roderick M. Hills

Fordham Urban Law Journal

Professor Somin has written an incisive critique of the New York Court of Appeals’ decisions in Kaur and Goldstein, the gist of which is that the Court did not do enough to stop “highly abusive blight condemnations.” There are, however, two difficulties with the critique. First, as a matter of legalistic interpretation of the New York Constitution, the critique is not very persuasive. Second, as a matter of policy, Professor Somin’s proposal is unlikely to be adopted by any judge influenced by the same political process that lead to the condemnations that Professor Somin attacks.

Access Management: Balancing Public And Private Rights In The Modern "Commons" Of The Roadway, Michael L. Stokes

Cleveland State Law Review

This Article will begin by examining how the concept of a right of access to an abutting roadway developed and how courts treated early efforts to regulate roadway access for public welfare and safety. Next, we will see how public authorities began to comprehend the differences between mobility and land access and to perceive the conflict between traffic volume, traffic speed, and frequent driveways and intersections. This new knowledge led to the adoption of statewide permit-based programs to manage access to roadways using criteria calibrated to match each road’s function in the continuum between access and mobility. We will identify …

Mezzanine Finance And Preferred Equity Investment In Commercial Real Estate: Security, Collateral & Control, Jon S. Robins, David E. Wallace, Mark Franke

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

This article will review both the genesis and the rise in popularity of preferred equity and mezzanine debt, examine their legal and structural differences, and provide some exposition as to how these financing techniques work from security, collateral and control standpoints. We do not undertake in this article to address the differences in tax and accounting treatment between mezzanine loans and preferred equity investments both for either the mezzanine lender or preferred equity investor on the one hand, or for the mezzanine borrower or the common equity investor, on the other hand. In deciding upon which structure to use, transaction …

Waiting For Hohfeld: Property Rights, Property Privileges, And The Physical Consequences Of Word Choice, Jerrold A. Long

Articles

An important part of our institutional and cultural history is our understanding of a system of property interests. The most common trajectory of land-use regulation appears consistent with a property rights meta-narrative that informs multiple academic disciplines and levels of human interaction. This meta-narrative suggests that all land-use decisions begin with an assumption about the nature and extent of property rights held by potentially affected landowners, and that the ultimate end of any land-use regime is to "protect" those assumed property rights from unwarranted or unjustified intrusion by government. Because the law is a distinct linguistic environment in which word …

The Conservation Easement Tax Expenditure: In Search Of Conservation Value, Roger Colinvaux

Scholarly Articles

Federal tax law has long provided a tax benefit for charitable contributions of easements for conservation purposes. A fundamental problem with this conservation easement tax expenditure is that the measure for the tax benefit – lost economic development value – is erroneous. Use of such an erroneous measure obscures the conservation benefits of the program by focusing attention and resources on divining a largely extraneous and unhelpful number. Further, to a considerable extent, the easement program is reflexively justified and understood based on this false measure, as if it represented the conservation value of the program. The Article argues that, …

Comments: Equitable Subrogation In Maryland Mortgages And The Restatement Of Property: A Historical Analysis For Contemporary Solutions, Gregg H. Mosson

University of Baltimore Law Review

No abstract provided.

Foreword: 40th Anniversary Of The Quiet Revolution In Zoning And Land Use Regulation, 45 J. Marshall L. Rev. Iii (2012), Celeste M. Hammond

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Rethinking The Renter/Owner Divide In Private Governance, Hannah J. Wiseman

Scholarly Publications

The revered status of American homeownership has deep and seemingly impenetrable roots. In our modern mythology/reality, the castles that shelter and nurture our pursuit of the good life are under siege. A narrative common to both popular media accounts and a burgeoning property literature warns that private homeowners’ associations hold dominion over millions of Americans, dictating what they may do with their property and foreclosing when they cannot pay association fees or fines. In response to this threat, legislatures, courts, and academics are fighting to stave off these intrusions by the content and use of constraining servitudes. In focusing on …

Mandatory Arbitration Of Internal Trust Disputes: Improving Arbitrability And Enforceability Through Proper Procedural Choices, S. I. Strong

Faculty Publications

Trusts and their civil law equivalents, often known as foundations or associations, play a large and increasing role in the global economy, holding trillions of dollars worth of assets and generating billions of dollars worth of revenue and trustees’ fees annually. Once considered nothing more than “mere” estate planning devices, trusts are now more often seen in commercial rather than in private contexts, and often feature sophisticated financial institutions as professional trustees. With favorable tax laws in various off-shore jurisdictions making international trusts increasingly popular and hostile trust litigation reaching epidemic proportions, arbitration would seem to be many parties’ dispute …

Water Rights, Markets, And Changing Ecological Conditions, Jonathan H. Adler

Faculty Publications

Conventional environmentalist thought is suspicious of private markets and property rights. The prospect of global climate change, and consequent ecological disruptions, has fueled the call for additional limitations on private markets and property rights. This essay, written for the Environmental Law Symposium on 21st Century Water Law, presents an alternative view. Specifically, this essay briefly explains why environmental problems generally, and the prospect of changing environmental conditions such as those brought about by climate change in particular, do not counsel further restrictions on private property rights and markets. To the contrary, the prospect of significant environmental changes strengthens the case …

Current Events: Reflections On Solar Power Generators' Ground Leasing Of Vacant Tracts, Michael N. Widener

Kentucky Journal of Equine, Agriculture, & Natural Resources Law

No abstract provided.

The Global Subprime Crisis As Explained By The Contrast Between American Contracts Law And Civil Law Countries' Laws, Practices And Expectations In Real Estate Transactions: How The Lack Of Informed Consent And The Absence Of The Civil Law Notary In The United States Contribute To The Global Crisis In Subprime Mortgage Investments, 11 J. Int'l Bus. & L. 133 (2012), Celeste M. Hammond, Ilaria Landini

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Which The Deader Hand - A Counter To The American Law Institute's Proposed Revival Of Dying Perpetuities Rules, 86 Tul. L. Rev. 559 (2012), Scott Andrew Shepard

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

Encouraged primarily by a fluke in federal estate and gift law, more than half of the states have either effectively or entirely abolished their rules against perpetuities in the past two decades. The American Law Institute, deeply troubled by this development has adopted for its Third Restatement a proposed rule against perpetuities that would essentially prohibit conditional gifts to continue for the benefit of parties born more than two generations after the transferor.

The ALI's efforts are misguided. The rule against perpetuities was the product of a legal, political, and social age very different than our own. It was designed …

Airspace And The Takings Clause, Troy A. Rule

Faculty Publications

This Article argues that the U.S. Supreme Court’s takings jurisprudence fails to account for instances when public entities restrict private airspace solely to keep it open for their own use. Many landowners rely on open space above adjacent land to preserve scenic views for their properties, to provide sunlight access for their rooftop solar panels, or to serve other uses that require no physical invasion of the neighboring space. Private citizens typically must purchase easements or covenants to prevent their neighbors from erecting trees or buildings that would interfere with these non-physical airspace uses. In contrast, public entities can often …

Arbitration Of Trust Disputes: Two Bodies Of Law Collide, S. I. Strong

Faculty Publications

This article considers the various issues that arise when two separate bodies of law – trust law and arbitration law – collide, using recent developments in the field of international commercial arbitration to address some of the more intransigent problems facing trust arbitration. The article focuses on five areas of concern: the potential for impermissible ouster of the courts, the operability and effectiveness of the arbitration provision, the extent to which the arbitration provision is binding on the party against whom arbitration is asserted, proper representation of parties and arbitrability. In so doing, this article introduces a number of new …

Developing Disaster: How Developers Are Using A Covenant To Steal From Homeowners And Why The States Should Stop Them, Amy Kathleen Lewis

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Man Who Removes A Mountain Begins By Carrying Away Small Stones: Flynn V. Holder And A Re-Examination Of The National Organ Transplantation Act Of 1984, Ryan Upchurch

Student Works

No abstract provided.

Who Should Protect The Forest: Conservation Easements In The Forest Legacy Program, Jessica Owley, Stephen J. Tulowiecki

Articles

No abstract provided.

Building- Related Renewable Energy And The Case Of 360 State Street, Sara Bronin

Faculty Articles and Papers

This Article argues that a well-conceived policy approach to building-related renewable energy (“BRRE”) — that is, renewable energy incorporated into inhabited structures and used by those structures’ occupants — could transform the way we produce and consume energy by maximizing efficiency while simultaneously minimizing energy sprawl. The vast majority of Americans favor renewable energy, at least in concept. Yet private property owners still face significant obstacles in trying to incorporate renewable energy into their projects. This Article analyzes barriers faced by the project team for 360 State Street, an award-winning, mixed-use LEED® Platinum building in downtown New Haven, Connecticut. Among …

Does The Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act Of 1974, Which Was Targeted Primarily At Kickbacks Between Service Providers, Also Bar Charges For Undivided, Unearned Services (10-1042), Marshall E. Tracht

Other Publications

The Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act of 1974 provides that “[n]o person shall give and no person shall accept any portion, split, or percentage of any charge made or received … other than for services actually performed.” The Supreme Court must decide whether this language prohibits a party from charging for services not actually performed if the party retains the entire charge, without splitting it with any other party.

Using Agent-Based Modeling To Simulate The Foreclosure Contagion Effect, Andrew J. Collins, Michael J. Seiler

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

A foreclosed property can have a negative impact on the prices of other properties within its neighborhood and these reduced property prices can lead to further foreclosures within the neighborhood; this is known as the foreclosure contagion effect. This effect has been demonstrated, within the real estate literature, to occur. Traditionally, real estate research have used statistical regression to analysis this issues. The application of Agent-based Modeling and Simulation (ABMS) has risen in the last 15 years and has successfully been used to model complexity situations, e.g., the real estate market. ABMS offers a way to explore the impact of …

Implementing State Growth Management Programs: Alternatives And Recommendations, 45 J. Marshall L. Rev. 307 (2012), Daniel R. Mandelker

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

It All Began In Hawai'i, 45 J. Marshall L. Rev. 317 (2012), David L. Callies

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.