Property Law and Real Estate Commons^™

"On The Take": The Black Box Of Credit Scoring And Mortgage Discrimination, Cassandra Jones Havard

All Faculty Scholarship

Subprime credit, a relatively new method of risk-based pricing, has been hailed as a way to open up markets and provide access to credit to those who would otherwise be excluded. Evidence suggests that subprime mortgage segmentation increases rather than reduces exclusionary practices in lending. Furthermore, what is unclear is how lenders determine who qualifies as a subprime borrower. This concern became manifested when studies demonstrated that minority borrowers, regardless of creditworthiness, are more likely to receive expensive, sub-prime loans. The disparity is properly attributed to lenders’ credit pricing policies which included discretionary increases despite the objectively-determined risk-based interest rate …

Law Day Oral Argument Session 5th District Court Of Appeal, 2011, Honorable Kerry I. Evander, Presiding Judge, Honorable Jay P. Cohen, Honorable Bruce W. Jacobus

Law Day Presentations

As part of the fifth annual Law Day event, a three judge panel from the Florida Fifth District Court of Appeal is hearing appellate oral arguments in the FAMU College of Law Ceremonial Moot Courtroom. The first arguments are regarding evidence and jury instruction issues; the second case involves real property, mortgages and liens, as well as jurisdiction issues; the final arguments are regarding juror non-disclosure. A question-and-answer session follows each set of arguments during which the justices and attorneys entertain questions about the appellate process and organization of the court.

Three Stories About Nature: Property, The Environment, And Ecosystem Services, Keith H. Hirokawa

Mercer Law Review

Property is the process of dividing the world into bits that may be subjected to private control. As such, how we understand the world, its characteristics, and its processes is very important. If, for instance, we think of water as an infinite resource that serves growth needs, we might not be concerned with how that resource is acquired, used, or even wasted. On the other hand, if we believe that water is a scarce and essential resource, we may find that an allocation scheme bears the weight of accomplishing many social and economic objectives. Nature matters because our understanding of …

How United States V. Jones Can Restore Our Faith In The Fourth Amendment, Erica Goldberg

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

United States v. Jones, issued in January of this year, is a landmark case that has the potential to restore a property-based interpretation of the Fourth Amendment to prominence. In 1967, the Supreme Court abandoned its previous Fourth Amendment framework, which had viewed the prohibition on unreasonable searches in light of property and trespass laws, and replaced it with a rule protecting the public’s reasonable expectations of privacy. Although the Court may have intended this reasonable expectations test to provide more protection than a test rooted in property law, the new test in fact made the Justices’ subjective views about …

Missed Opportunity Or Dodged Bullet? The Tenth Circuit’S Non-Decision In Rocky Mountain Christian Church V. Board Of County Commissioners, James C. Dunkelberger

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Game Is Afoot!: The Significance Of Donative Transfers In The Sherlock Holmes Canon, Stephen R. Alton

Faculty Scholarship

This article presents a recently discovered and previously unpublished manuscript written by John H. Watson, M.D., and annotated by Professor Stephen Alton. Dr. Watson’s manuscript records an extended conversation that took place between the good doctor and his great friend, the renowned consulting detective Mr. Sherlock Holmes, regarding issues of gratuitous transfers of property – issues involving inheritances, wills, and trusts – that have arisen in some of the great cases solved by Mr. Holmes. This felicitous discovery confirms something that Professor Alton has long known: these gratuitous transfer issues permeate many of these adventures. Often, the action in the …

Proposed Exactions, Timothy M. Mulvaney

Faculty Scholarship

In the abstract, the site-specific ability to issue conditional approvals offers local governments the flexible option of permitting a development proposal while simultaneously requiring the applicant to offset the project’s external impacts. However, the U.S. Supreme Court curtailed the exercise of this option in Nollan and Dolan by establishing a constitutional takings framework unique to exaction disputes. This exaction takings construct has challenged legal scholars on several fronts for the better part of the past two decades. For one, Nollan and Dolan place a far greater burden on the government in justifying exactions it attaches to a development approval than …

Slides: Environmental Water In Australia, Chris Arnott

Conversation with Water Management Reps from Colorado and Australia: "Adapting to Climate Change: Lessons Learned from Australia" (February 14)

Presenter: Chris Arnott, Managing Director, Alluvium Consulting

30 slides

Slides: Adapting To Climate Change: Lessons Learnt From The Australian Water Experience, Will Fargher

Conversation with Water Management Reps from Colorado and Australia: "Adapting to Climate Change: Lessons Learned from Australia" (February 14)

Presenter: Will Fargher, National Water Commission, Australian Government

18 slides [4 have titles only and are missing images]

The Path Out Of Washington's Takings Quagmire: The Case For Adopting The Federal Takings Analysis, Roger D. Wynne

Washington Law Review

A quagmire awaits anyone attempting to understand the analysis Washington courts employ to determine whether government action constitutes a “taking” of property for which compensation is due under the U.S. Constitution. The Washington takings analysis is complex and confounding, especially when compared to the relatively straightforward takings analysis established by the U.S. Supreme Court. This Article argues that the Washington State Supreme Court should reject the Washington takings analysis and adopt the federal analysis. Comparing the federal and Washington analyses underscores how, as a matter of form, the Washington analysis easily stymies those who must work with it. Substantively, the …

Kelo, Conservation Easements, And Forever: Why Eminent Domain Is Not A Sufficient Check On Conservation Easements' Perpetual Duration, Derrick P. Fellows

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

No abstract provided.

The Path Out Of Washington's Takings Quagmire: The Case For Adopting The Federal Takings Analysis, Roger D. Wynne

Washington Law Review

A quagmire awaits anyone attempting to understand the analysis Washington courts employ to determine whether government action constitutes a “taking” of property for which compensation is due under the U.S. Constitution. The Washington takings analysis is complex and confounding, especially when compared to the relatively straightforward takings analysis established by the U.S. Supreme Court. This Article argues that the Washington State Supreme Court should reject the Washington takings analysis and adopt the federal analysis. Comparing the federal and Washington analyses underscores how, as a matter of form, the Washington analysis easily stymies those who must work with it. Substantively, the …

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

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

South Africa’S Land Reform Crisis: Eliminating The Legacy Of Apartheid, Bernadette Atuahene

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Property Rights And The Demands Of Transformation, Bernadette Atuahene

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Opt-In Or Opt-Out?, Rachel Bernstein

Maria Dittman Library Research Competition: Student Award Winners

No abstract provided.

To Gauge An Understanding Of How Boundaries Are Perceived In Ireland By Landowners, Daragh O'Brien, William Prendergast

Conference Papers

Recent anecdotal evidence from property professionals indicates that there has been a significant increase in boundary disputes in Ireland since the phased publication of the Land Registry digital map in 2005. There is a need to investigate this development in order to confirm or refute this trend and attempt to identify the issues causing these disputes. There is an absence of detailed information on the causes and types of boundary disputes within the Irish Legal system. This project aims to address this lack of information by collecting comprehensive information on a range of case studies over the past 5 years …

The Inauthentic Claim, Anthony J. Sebok

Vanderbilt Law Review

"It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that so it was laid down in the time of Henry IV. It is still more revolting if the grounds upon which it was laid down have vanished long since, and the rule simply persists from blind imitation of the past." -Oliver Wendell Holmes'

This Article takes a critical look at the persistence of legal doctrines that prohibit or limit property rights in litigation. The Article focuses on prohibitions on assignment and maintenance. Assignment of personal injury tort claims is prohibited throughout the United States, while …

Finding Possession: Labor, Waste And The Evolution Of Property, Jill M. Fraley

Scholarly Articles

Although possession has long been intimately linked to labor, recent historical work on land claims during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries suggests that the clash of divergent legal cultures of possession drove the two apart. This clash yielded an American concept of possession much more deeply connected to industrialization than the traditional understanding of labor. By providing evidence of how our concept of labor was industrialized, this article questions the outcomes in modem possession cases, particularly as they impact development and environmental preservation in rural areas.

The Great American Housing Bubble : The Road To Collapse, Robert M. Hardaway

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

In the aftermath of the American housing collapse in 2008, many ask why. The Great American Housing Bubble: The Road to Collapse asks a different and more fundamental question - how the bubble was created in the first place. To answer that question, it examines the causes, both political and economic, of the American housing bubble created between 1940 and 2007. Those causes encompass everything from federal income tax subsidies for housing to local exclusionary policies, banking, accounting, real estate appraisal, and credit agency rating practices and policies. The book also takes into account the impact of greed, government regulation, …