Sep 14

Property Rights: The owner as Planner (Platt Chap. 7)

"Owner as planner": chooses how and when to use property.

Real property: land , buildings, vegetation, maybe water, and maybe minerals, etc.

Back to property rights: "bundle of sticks" metaphor

Green stciks (rights and benefits): use, development, extract appreciated value; change uses; exclude; minerals, water.

Red sticks: (obligations): avoid nuisance, "harmful externalities," pay property taxes.

Types of ownership

Fee Simple (absolute) rights:

Sub-divide (division in space)

Severe use rights

Division of use in time

Leasehold, tenancy

Limits: most common are Easements for utilities.

Covenants

Purchase and sales (real property is "alienable")

Pinpointing and defining Land

 

Metes and Bounds

Federal land survey (township and range, section, quarter-section, etc.)

Lots in a subdivision plot