Property Law and Real Estate Commons^™

The Status Of Private Covenants In Gross In Maine, Geoffrey Forney

Maine Law Review

In State v. Moosehead Mountain Resort, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court recently held that the State may enforce a restrictive covenant in gross. The decision appears to create new law by departing from the established rule in Maine, as laid down in an earlier decision in Brown v. Heirs of Fuller, that restrictive covenants in gross are not enforceable in equity. Although the holding in Moosehead Mountain is arguably narrow because the case only addressed the government's ability to enforce covenants in gross, the Law Court's omission of any reference to or discussion of its decision in Brown leaves open …

Conservation Easements As A Tool For Nature Protection, William Snape

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Climate Change Challenges For Land Conservation: Rethinking Conservation Easements, Strategies, And Tools, Jessica Owley, Federico Cheever, Adena R. Rissman, M. Rebecca Shaw, Barton H. Thompson Jr., W. William Weeks

Articles

No abstract provided.

Shirley We Can Figure This Out: The Continued Confusion Surrounding Prescriptive Easement, Ethan B. Clark

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Exploiting Conservation Lands: Can Hydrofracking Be Consistent With Conservation Easements, Jessica Owley, Collin Doane

Articles

No abstract provided.

Fixing A Broken Common Law -- Has The Property Law Of Easements And Covenants Been Reformed By A Restatement, Ronald H. Rosenberg

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Enhancing Conservation Options: An Argument For Statutory Recognition Of Options To Purchase Conservation Easements (Opces), Federico Cheever, Jessica Owley

Articles

Land conservation transactions have been the most active component of the conservation movement in the United States for the past three decades. Conservation organizations have acquired property rights-mostly conservation easements-to protect roughly 40 million acres of land nationwide. However, climate change threatens this vast edifice. Climate change means that the resources that land conservation transactions were intended to protect may not persist on the land protected. Options to purchase conservation easements ("OPCEs") have long played a modest but important role in conservation law practice. In the world climate change is creating, with its substantial uncertainties and shifting windows of opportunity, …

Easier Easements: A New Path For Conservation Easement Deduction Valuation, Nicholas Carson

Northwestern University Law Review

Conservation easements, a valuable tool in the conservationist’s toolbox, have grown increasingly popular since the 1980s, when Congress introduced changes to the federal tax code making easement donations more financially attractive. And with deductions reaching hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of dollars, conservation easement deductions are big business. However, expanded incentives and loosened regulations invite abuse, especially when the tax implications are large and donated easements are hard to value. Valuation of real estate remains an inexact science, dependent on inconsistent appraisal methods and subjectivity. Conservation easements can be even more difficult to value than other easements because, by …

Conservation Easements And The "Term Creep" Problem, Michael Allan Wolf

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Essay first discusses the “term creep” problem that has long plagued the Anglo-American common law of real property, that is, the tendency of common law courts (and in turn commentators and legislators) to use the same label to describe two or more conceptually discrete, though related, concepts. The confusion between easements of the “traditional” and “conservation” varieties is just one in a long line of situations in which the decision to allow often significantly dissimilar concepts to share the same name has led to unfortunate consequences. The second part of the Essay explains the substantive nature of the hybrids …

Conservation Easements As Charitable Property: Fiduciary Duties And The Limits Of Charitable Self-Regulation, Melanie B. Leslie

Articles

No abstract provided.

Some Pluralism About Pluralism: A Comment On Hanoch Dagan's "Pluralism And Perfectionism In Private Law", Jedediah S. Purdy

Faculty Scholarship

Hanoch Dagan is among “those who think it advantageous to get as much ethics into the law as they can,” in the phrase of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. His pluralism is a perfectionism for polytheists: There are many human goods, and each has its domain, including some portion of the law of property. Depending on where we stand on the property landscape at any time, we may be community-minded sharers, devoted romantics in marriage, or coolly rational market actors, and the local property law will smooth each of these paths for us. Property law is built on the design of …

Conservation Easements As Charitable Property: Fiduciary Duties And The Limits Of Charitable Self-Regulation, Melanie B. Leslie

Articles

No abstract provided.

Distributed Graduate Seminars: An Interdisciplinary Approach To Studying Land Conservation, Jessica Owley, Adena R. Rissman

Articles

No abstract provided.

Conservation Easements At The Climate Change Crossroads, Jessica Owley

Articles

No abstract provided.

Changing Property In A Changing World: A Call For The End Of Perpetual Conservation Easements, Jessica Owley

Articles

No abstract provided.

Conservation Easements, Appraisals Thereof, And Form 8283 - The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly, Stephen J. Small

William & Mary Annual Tax Conference

No abstract provided.

Conservation Easement Appraisal Rules And Questions, Stephen J. Small

William & Mary Annual Tax Conference

No abstract provided.

Tax Notes Article, Stephen J. Small

William & Mary Annual Tax Conference

No abstract provided.

Excerpt From Kaufman Brief

William & Mary Annual Tax Conference

No abstract provided.

Some Points Re Perpetuity - Code And Regulations

William & Mary Annual Tax Conference

No abstract provided.

Solar Rights For Texas Property Owners, Sara C. Bronin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In response to Jamie France's note, A Proposed Solar Access Law for the State of Texas, Professor Bronin urges future commentators to focus on three additional areas of inquiry related to proposed solar rights regimes. Bronin argues that such proposals would be strengthened by discussion of potential legal challenges to the proposals, related political issues, and renewable energy microgrids. Ms. France’s proposal for the State of Texas includes the elimination of preexisting private property restrictions that negatively affect solar access. Bronin argues that this proposal would be strengthened by a discussion of potential challenges under federal and state takings clauses. …

Solar Rights, Sara C. Bronin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The rights to access and to harness the rays of the sun - solar rights - are extremely valuable. These rights can determine whether and how an individual can take advantage of the sun’s light, warmth, or energy, and they can have significant economic consequences. Accordingly, for at least two thousand years, people have attempted to assign solar rights in a fair and efficient manner. In the United States, attempts to assign solar rights have fallen short. A quarter century ago, numerous American legal scholars debated this deficiency. They agreed that this country lacked a coherent legal framework for the …

Slides: Groundwater Declines, Climate Change And Approaches To Adaptation, Katharine Jacobs

Western Water Law, Policy and Management: Ripples, Currents, and New Channels for Inquiry (Martz Summer Conference, June 3-5)

Presenter: Katharine Jacobs, Director of the Arizona Water Institute, University of Arizona

37 slides

An End-Run Around The Takings Clause? The Law And Economics Of Bivens Actions For Property Rights Violations, Arpan A. Sura

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Growing Influence Of Tort And Property Law On Natural Resources Law: Case Studies Of Coal Bed Methane Development And Geologic Carbon Sequestration, Alexandra B. Klass

The Future of Natural Resources Law and Policy (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

19 pages.

"Alexandra B. Klass, Associate Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School"

Real Estate Law, Paul H. Davenport, Lindsey H. Dobbs

University of Richmond Law Review

This article surveys significant cases concerning real property law decided by the Supreme Court of Virginia between the spring of 2004 and the spring of 2006. This article also details significant legislative changes flowing from the 2005 and 2006 Virginia General Assembly sessions.

Slides: Ecotrust Forests, Bettina Von Hagen

Community-Owned Forests: Possibilities, Experiences, and Lessons Learned (June 16-19)

Presenter: Bettina Von Hagen, Ecotrust Forests, OR

25 slides

Agenda: Community-Owned Forests: Possibilities, Experiences, And Lessons Learned, Communities Committee, University Of Montana. School Of Forestry. Bolle Center For People And Forests, Wilderness Society (U.S.), Nature Conservancy Of Montana, Swan Ecosystem Center, Northwest Connections, Blackfoot Challenge, Flathead Economic Policy Center, Pinchot Institute For Conservation, American Forests, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center

Community-Owned Forests: Possibilities, Experiences, and Lessons Learned (June 16-19)

Community-owned forests may be the answer for some U.S. communities now confronting unanticipated and unwanted large scale land use changes – changes that could irrevocably change their local landscapes and quality of life. Across the country, millions of acres of private forest lands are being put up for sale as the forest products companies who own them find other, cheaper sources of supply. If, as is likely, purchasers divide and convert the forests to residential or other development uses, nearby communities face losing the critical economic, environmental, recreational, social, cultural, and aesthetic values and benefits those forests have traditionally provided. …

The Emergence Of Exacted Conservation Easements, Jessica Owley Lippmann

Articles

No abstract provided.

Of Property And Antiproperty, Abraham Bell, Gideon Parchomovsky

Michigan Law Review

Private property is widely perceived as a potent prodevelopment and anticonservationist force. The drive to accumulate wealth through private property rights is thought to encourage environmentally destructive development; legal protection of such property rights is believed to thwart environmentally friendly public measures. Indeed, property rights advocates and environmentalists are generally described as irreconcilable foes. This presumed clash often leads environmentalists to urge public acquisition of private lands. Interestingly, less attention is paid to the possibility that the government may prove no better a conservator than private owners. Government actors often mismanage conservation properties, collaborating with private developers to dispose of …