Immovable property

“ Ensley then lays down the proposition that property naturally divides itself into two classes—movable and immovable; that the former, as its name implies, can be moved from one place to another as its owner chooses, while the latter is fixed and can not budge an inch, no matter what its owner chooses, "I hold it to be true that immovable property has no value till it is occupied or located upon, or brought to subsist or employ, movable property; and, as a rule, the more it employs or subsists, the more valuable it becomes ”

“ Though this may be the consequence the rest of the will is not thereby impaired. The property given is either real or personal. Real property consists of land extending indefinitely upward and downward, every building thereon, every growing thing, likewise all minerals and in some cases even ice. ”

“ The old rule, expressed in the maxim mobilia sequntur personam, by which personal property was regarded as subject to the law of the owner's domicile, grew up in the Middle Ages, when movable property consisted chiefly of gold and jewels, which could be easily carried by the owner from place to place, or secreted in spots known only to himself. In modern times, since the great increase in amount and variety of personal property, not immediately connected with the person of the owner, that rule has yielded more and more to the lex situs,-the law of the place where the property is kept and used. ”

“ That these effects do not amount to a complete, physical, or permanent deprivation of real property is irrelevant, since even the temporary or partial impairments to property rights that such encumbrances entail are sufficient to merit due process protection. ”

“ Feudal principles apply to real estate. The notions of personal property of the common law, which is founded on natural law, depend materially on possession, and that of an adverse character, exclusive in its nature and pretensions. ”

“ A thousand dollars, once invested, is virtually immortal, unless it is stolen, or disposed of in some extra legal way. Depreciation, amortization, insurance and special surplus-fund charges throw around income earning property a large guarantee of safety. Any failure in the perpetuity of the property values is due to inadvertence or impotence in the property interests. For centuries the thought and effort of the business world have been directed toward the increasing permanence of property rights. ”

“ And such a long silence does, as we have already intimated, justly lead to the conclusion of a consciousness, that the right, if any, was exceedingly doubtful. In the mean time, the property has materially risen in value, from the general improvement and settlement of the country, and thus furnishes an additional reason for not disturbing the existing rights of property. ”

“ Yet where is the citizen that does not gladly exchange all the steadfast earth-bound property he has, and invest it in this more beneficial and productive possession? Trover and trespass may be maintained for it, contracts may be made with regard to it, transfers may take place of it-in short, there is no criterion of property or ownership, that may not be applied to what is regarded as having no substantial existence. ”

“ Those, therefore, who acquire personal property, acquire only what will last about a generation, longer or shorter. Such property is quickly converted into money—it perishes and is gone. But land is hedged round with numerous guards which protect it from hasty spoliation. ”

“ It includes more than the mere value of the property taken, for often the main injury is not in the value of the property absolutely lost to the owner, but in the effect upon the balance of his property of the cutting out of the part taken. ”

“ Titles to estates can be made with greater facility, and it may be presumed that it will not be necessary to make the expensive and redundant conveyances which appear to be required in the transfer of real property at home. ”

“ Should there be the slightest irregularity in the method of transfer, men, members of society, imprescriptible possessors of the land, might be deprived at one blow of property, possession, and the means of production. ”

“ While a much longer time might be allowed to assert this right in regard to real estate whose value is fixed, on which no outlay is made for improvement, and but little change in value, the class of property here considered, subject to the most rapid, frequent, and violent fluctuations in value of any thing known as property, requires prompt action in all who hold an option, whether they will share its risks, or stand clear of them. ”

“ The Artisans' Dwellings Act, 1882, provides that when in the opinion of the arbitrator the demolition of the property dealt with adds to the value of other property belonging to the same owner, the amount of such increased value may be apportioned and levied as an improvement rate on the lands, &c., affected ”

“ The right to dispose both of the possession and estate follows necessarily from the ownership of the property, and, this being so, no valid objection can be urged against incorporating the contract and power in the same instrument with the mortgage. ”

“ I ask, then, in the first place, how possession can become property by the lapse of time? Continue possession as long as you wish, continue it for years and for centuries, you never can give duration—which of itself creates nothing, changes nothing, modifies nothing—the power to change the usufructuary into a proprietor. Let the civil law secure against chance-comers the honest possessor who has held his position for many years,—that only confirms a right already respected ”

“ Finally, even though the owner may retain the bare legal right to dispose of the occupied space by transfer or sale, the permanent occupation of that space by a stranger will ordinarily empty the right of any value, since the purchaser will also be unable to make any use of the property. ”

“ NEARLY all the modern writers on jurisprudence, taking their cue from the economists, have abandoned the theory of first occupancy as a too dangerous one, and have adopted that which regards property as born of labor. ”

“ A far more serious impediment is the complicated state of the ownership of land, which renders it frequently impracticable to subdivide a property into such portions as would bring the land within the reach of small bidders. ”

“ SECOND PROPOSITION. Property is Impossible, because, wherever it exists, Production costs more than it is worth. THIRD PROPOSITION. Property is Impossible, because, with a given Capital, Production is proportional to Labor, not to Property. FOURTH PROPOSITION. Property is Impossible, because it is Homicide. FIFTH PROPOSITION. Property is Impossible, because, if it exists, Society devours itself. ”

“ Property is the suicide of society. Possession is a right; property is against right. Suppress property while maintaining possession, and, by this simple modification of the principle, you will revolutionize law, government, economy, and institutions; you will drive evil from the face of the earth.
II. All having an equal right of occupancy, possession varies with the number of possessors; property cannot establish itself.
III. The effect of labor being the same for all, property is lost in the common prosperity. ”

“ Property once acquired by occupation and labor, it naturally preserves itself, not only by the same means, but also by the refusal of the holder to abdicate; for from the very fact that it has risen to the height of a right, it is its nature to perpetuate itself and to last for an indefinite period.... ”

“ Materialman's and mechanic's lien statutes award an interest in real property to workers who have contributed their labor, and to suppliers who have furnished material, for the improvement of the real property. ”

“ Our law for the distribution of intestate estates occasions a frequent division of landed property, and prevents monopolies of land. But in opposition to these we have labored under many disadvantages. ”

“ It cannot be denied that inheritance, assessment, commerce, industry, labor, and wages require the most important modifications.”
You wish, proletaires, to regulate property; that is, you wish to destroy it and reduce it to the right of possession. For to regulate property without the consent of the proprietors is to deny the right of domain; to associate employees with proprietors is to destroy the eminent right; to suppress or even reduce farm-rent, house-rent, revenue, and increase generally, is to annihilate perfect property. ”

“ A lease of land is the rightful possession and use without the ownership of it, while a servitude over land is the rightful use without either the ownership or the possession of it. There are two distinct methods in which I may acquire a road across another man’s property. ”

“ Thus an apple on the tree is real estate, but when fallen upon the ground it becomes personal property. Running water accumulated in a pond is real estate, though the owner is not permitted to invest it with the peculiar attribute of real estate—namely, stability—by permanently arresting its flow. In some States the engines, water wheels, shafting, and even belts of factories are real estate, while looms and lathes are personal property. ”

“ The main object of those provisions, as their careful regulations show, is to take possession of and preserve the property for the absent owner, not to deprive him of it upon an assumption that he is dead. ”

“ In fact, they are always either deeds of gift, or of sale, or of exchange, or of the grant of precaria. It is impossible not to allow that the thousands of deeds of this kind are so many proofs of private property, since you can neither sell nor give away what is not already your own. ”

“ In order that the question of proprietorship may not remain too long unsettled, and thereby injure the public welfare, disturbing the peace of families and the stability of social transactions, the law has fixed a time when all claims shall be cancelled, and possession shall regain its ancient prerogative through its transformation into property. ”

“ Penalties are triple damages, fine, and ransom to the King. A forceful possession lasting three years is exempt.
By common law, a tenant could not take away buildings or fixtures he built on land because it would be wasteful. This applied to agricultural fixtures, but not to other trade fixtures. Also at common law, if a person had enjoyed light next to his property for at least 20 years, no one could build up the adjacent land so that the light would be blocked.
Women of age fourteen or over shall have livery of their lands and
tenements by inheritance without question or difficulty. ”

“ There is something shocking to all our ideas of the rights of property in the proposition that one man may invade the possessions of another, dig up his fields and gardens, cut down his timber, and occupy his land, under the pretence that he has reason to believe there is gold under the surface, or if existing, that he wishes to extract and remove it. ”

“ It will not be considered extravagant, when the claims of those who have got present possession of this landed property is taken into consideration—the claim that the land is theirs for the whole remainder of eternity, notwithstanding the truth shining by its own light, that landed property must be more limited in its nature than other proprietary rights, because no man made the land. ”

“ In a strict legal sense, land is not 'property', but the subject of property. The term 'property', although in common parlance frequently applied to a tract of land or a chattel, in its legal signification 'means only the rights of the owner in relation to it'. 'It denotes a right over a determinate thing'. 'Property is the right of any person to possess, use, enjoy, and dispose of a thing'. ”

“ In the latter case the road, its bed, its rolling stock, and much other property probably was not conveyed, and no expression is found implying that all its lands were conveyed; and if we limit the words 'all other property' to what we have supposed to be their meaning, there is nothing else to imply that the company intended to mortgage all its property of every kind and description, whether real or personal. ”

“ The good will of a lease which the landlord is in the habit of renewing is property, and rights growing out of it, whether by contract or otherwise, will be protected and enforced by a court of equity. ”

“ No limitation on this general principle arises from the mere fact of the particular situation of the property, as the principle is general and embraces all the property of the bankrupt estate, wherever situated. ”

“ The very distinction made in legal terminology between real and personal property is but the survival of a primitive distinction between what was originally looked upon as common property and what from its nature was always considered the peculiar property of the individual. ”

“ The interest accruing from the funded property or the rent of the lands at certain periods was to be employed to purchase other estates, other parks and manors in the neighbourhood or farther off, so that the prospect of the future demesne that was to devolve at some distant time to the unborn lord of acres, swelled and enlarged itself, like a sea, circle without circle, vista beyond vista, till the imagination was staggered, and the mind exhausted. ”

“ Let us admit, then, with the most careful writers, that if transient property, or the right of preference resulting from occupation, existed prior to the establishment of civil society, permanent property, as we know it to-day, is the work of civil law. It is the civil law which holds that, when once acquired, property can be lost only by the action of the proprietor, and that it exists even after the proprietor has relinquished possession of the thing, and it has fallen into the hands of a third party. ”

“ Very few persons now make any distinction between virtually complete property and property held on such highly developed public conditions as to place its income on the same footing as that of a propertyless clergyman, officer, or civil servant. A landed proprietor may still drive men and women off his land, demolish their dwellings, and replace them with sheep or deer ”