Title to property

“ Some economists befog themselves on this subject, as before shown, by first defining property as anything that can be bought and sold, and then, since a title—as, for example, a deed—can be bought and sold, accept the inference that a title is necessarily property. But let us analyze this definition and assumption. The creditor can, without doubt, sell and deliver a deed to a farm, but what is sold in such instances is the farm, including a right—namely, a right to have dominion over it. But it may be rejoined that a right of dominion is property. ”

“ Courts and jurists everywhere agree that the title to real estate is governed by the laws of the place where it is situated, the universal rule being that the title to such property can only be acquired, passed, or lost according to the lex loci rei sitoe. ”

“ And by the term 'property,' as applied to land, all titles are included,-legal or equitable, perfect or imperfect. 'It comprehends,' assaid by this court in Soulard v. U.S., 4 Pet. 511, 'every species of title, inchoate or complete. It is supposed to embrace those rights which are executory as well as those which are executed. ”

“ Where these two rights do exist, in their more or less modified form, you have the explanation of the fact that when a married man sells real property, his wife joins in the deed, or when a married woman sells real property, her husband joins in the deed. The act of either in joining, releases the dower or curtesy right and allows the purchaser to get a clear title.
CONFLICT OF LAWS.—We have already referred to this topic. It frequently happens that a person dies owning real property located in a number of States. ”

“ THE most usual and universal method of acquiring a title to real estates is that of alienation, conveyance, or purchase in it's limited sense: under which may be comprized any method wherein estates are voluntarily resigned by one man, and accepted by another; whether that be effected by sale, gift, marriage settlement, devise, or other transmission of property by the mutual consent of the parties. ”

“ The holding of property under a claim of ownership for many years operates to confer a title by adverse possession, which the courts, in the interest of the peace of the community and of society generally, will not permit to be disturbed. ”

“ It is a departure from the fundamental principle of property, which secures the title of the original owner against a wrongful disposition by another person, and which does not permit one to transfer a better title than he has. ”

“ More briefly the seller warrants the title to the property which is the subject of sale. Whether the seller is in or out of possession of the property, he can by appropriate words sell such interest as he may have therein. But persons also sell property not owned by themselves by authority of others or of the law. Unless they expressly warrant the title they are not liable for lack of it. Sales of this nature are made by a sheriff, or other judicial officer, auctioneer or mortgagee, assignee in bankruptcy, executor or administrator, guardian, or simply an agent. ”

“ It means simply that the grantors shall have removed all burdens which rested upon the property prior to the time of making their deed, and that that deed shall pass the title perfect and unincumbered, but not that the grantee shall take it free from all obligation of payment, or discharged from the lien for the purchase price which rests upon real estate until such price is paid. ”

“ In a devise of real and personal property, the law makes a distinction as to the two estates, in the construction of devisees; and, when technical language is used, the devisee takes an absolute estate in the personal, and a limited estate, or an estate tail, in the real property. ”

“ The term “property” or “properties” shall include all buildings, lands, funds, moneys, goods, effects, assets, or claims to property, or rights of action, of what kind soever, whether in possession, or expectancy, nothing excepted ”

“ Long terms in some states have annexed to them the properties of freehold estates. In some states estates pur autre vie descend like real property; in others an estate pur autre vie is deemed freehold only during the life of the grantee ”

“ 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'. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The term 'property' is used in a comprehensive sense and includes all objects or rights which are susceptible of ownership. The term 'interest' refers to the extent of ownership, that is, to the estate or the quality and quantum of ownership by the surviving spouse or other person, of particular property.' S.Rep. ”

“ Toullier: "Property is a right, a legal power; possession is a fact." The tenant, the farmer, the commandite, the usufructuary, are possessors; the owner who lets and lends for use, the heir who is to come into possession on the death of a usufructuary, are proprietors. If I may venture the comparison: a lover is a possessor, a husband is a proprietor. ”

“ It has control over property within its limits; and the condition of ownership of real estate therein, whether the owner be stranger or citizen, is subjection to its rules concerning the holding, the transfer, liability to obligations, private or public, and the modes of establishing titles thereto. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It further provides: 'The term 'real property' as used in this compact includes lands, * * * and interests in land, * * * and any and all things and rights usually included within the said term, and includes not only fees simple and absolute, but also any and all lesser interests, such as easements, rights of way, uses, leases, licenses, and all other incorporeal hereditaments and every estate, interest or right, legal or equitable, including terms of years and liens thereon by way of judgments, mortgages, or otherwise, and also claims for damage to real estate.' N.J.S.A. 32:8-4. ”

“ The term 'property', as commonly used denotes any external object over which the right of property is exercised. In this sense it is a very wide term, and includes every class of acquisitions which a man can own or have an interest in. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In short, as property is the subject of every equitable obligation, so the owner of property is the only person whose act or acts can be the means of creating an obligation in respect to that property. ”

“ The owner, in his own right, of real or personal property of the value of two hundred and fifty dollars; or the husband of a woman who is the owner, in her own right, of real or personal property of that value. ”

“ The eyes have a property in things and territories not named in any title deeds, and are the owners of our choicest possessions. ”

“ 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. ”

“ ILLUSTRATION.—An illustration that gives us the idea of property will make our definition clear. A takes his shoes to a cobbler to be repaired. When he calls for them, he does not have the price for the work, and the cobbler refuses to give them up. Both A and the cobbler have a property right in the shoes. The right to absolute ownership is in A, that is his property right. The temporary possession, however, is in the cobbler, and he may hold the shoes under the lien for repairs indefinitely and until he receives his compensation. The lien is his property right. ”

“ 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. ”

“ An estate or interest, legal or equitable, in real property belonging to a woman at her marriage, or which may have come to her during coverture, by conveyance, gift, devise, or inheritance, or by purchase with her separate means or money, shall, together with all rents and issues thereof, be and remain her separate property, and under her control ”

“ The popular maxim that "possession is nine-tenths of the law," is founded on the salutary and reasonable doctrine of the law, that the party in possession of property is presumed to be the owner until the contrary shall have been proved. ”

“ Why should property, contrary to the interests of the proprietor, be exempt from sale, receive instruction, give testimony in court, hold estate, preserve family ties, be loved as the owner loves himself, in fine, enjoy all or any of the "inalienable rights" of man? ”

“ Personal property is not subject to various incidents of real property, such as rent, dower or escheat. (3) On the death of the owner intestate real property descends to the heir, personal property is divided according to the Statute of Distributions. (4) Real property as a general rule must be transferred by deed; personal property does not need so solemn a mode of transfer. (5) Contracts relating to real property must be in writing by the Statute of Frauds, 29 Car. ”

“ otherwise they would have known that it is to the property of the citizen, and not to the demands of the creditor of the state, that the first and original faith of civil society is pledged. The claim of the citizen is prior in time, paramount in title, superior in equity. The fortunes of individuals, whether possessed by acquisition, or by descent, or in virtue of a participation in the goods of some community, were no part of the creditor's security, expressed or implied. They never so much as entered into his head, when he made his bargain. ”

“ But property is also the right to exchange, to transfer, and to sell. If, then, the social condition is such that the proprietor, ruined by usury, may be compelled to sell his possession, the means of his subsistence, he will sell it; and, thanks to the law, accumulated property—devouring and anthropophagous property—will be established. ”

“ And the first question that would seem to arise is, whether the term estate, as here used, will extend to the interest which the debtor has in lands held adversely. An estate in lands, tenements, and hereditaments, signifies such interest as a person has therein, and is the condition or circumstance in which the owner stands with regard to his property. Coke. sec. 345. a. 2 Black. Com. 103.
The language of the act is broad enough to include a right of entry; and there can be no reason to believe that such was not the intention of the legislature. ”

“ I.13 If things were always owned in fee simple, i.e. if there were no division of ownership,—no partnership rights, no shares, and no stock companies,—there would be little practical need to distinguish property from wealth; and as a matter of fact, in the rough popular usage, any article of wealth, and especially real estate, is often inaccurately called a "piece of property." ”

“ Real property, lands, tenements, and hereditaments, real estate; Qualified property, the right a man has in reclaimed wild animals—also called Special property: such right as a bailee has in the chattel transferred to him by the bailment. ”

“ The term 'real estate' includes all lands within the territory to which title or right to title has been acquired; all mines, minerals and quarries, in and under the land, and all rights and privileges appertaining thereto and improvements. ”

“ Whence property came to be called the perfect right, the right of domain, the eminent right, the heroic or quiritaire right,—in Latin, jus perfectum, jus optimum, jus quiritarium, jus dominii,—while possession became assimilated to farm-rent. ”

“ Estates not of freehold or less than freehold are subdivided into (i.) estates for years (often called estates for a term of years, the instrument creating it being termed a lease or demise, and the estate itself a leasehold interest) ; (ii.) estates at will, that is, where lands or tenements are let by one man to another to have and to hold at the will of the lessor; (iii.) estates at sufferance, where one comes into possession of land under a lawful title, and continues in possession after his title has determined. ”

“ The owner of each plot of land owns a deed for the same, stamped with the magistrate's seal or signed with his name. In many instances where property has been in the same family for several centuries, these deeds may have been lost or destroyed; but if the land is sold, new deeds must be issued. ”