"Owner as planner": owner is primary land use decision-maker, chooses how and when to use property.
Real property: land , buildings, vegetation, maybe water, and maybe minerals, timber, groundwater etc, depending on how these rights were adjudicated nationally (minerals) or by state and local gov. (e.g., groundwater) etc.
This can get messy when we think of things that can “flow” across your land, like wildlife (“owned” by the state) or water.
Who own the water? In the West we use appropriative or prior appropriation rights system: anyone can claim un-appropriated water regardless of land ownership, there is a separate water rights record system. and it can be bought and sold separately.
There is also significant “public” ownership (not just of public lands like National Parks or Forests) but of streets, schools, etc.
Back to property rights: "bundle of sticks" metaphor
Green sticks (rights and benefits): use, development, extract appreciated value; change uses; exclude; minerals, water.
Red sticks: (obligations): avoid nuisance, "harmful externalities," pay property taxes, and, of course, the owner must comply with relevant land use regulations!.
Types of ownership
Fee Simple (absolute) rights:
Sub-divide (division in space)
Severe use rights
Division of use in time
Leasehold, tenancy: this involves something more like a contract (lease) than title: the tenant is in a contract relationship with the owner to use/occupy the land under certain terms.
Limits: most common are Easements for utilities.
Covenants
Owner aquires and disposes of property thru:
Purchase and sales (real property is "alienable"); gift; involuntary forfeiture (loss due to failure to fulfill obligations like paying taxes); condemnation (power of state to take land for social purpose)
Pinpointing and defining Land
We won’t talk about this:
Metes and Bounds
Federal land survey (township and range, section, quarter-section, etc.)
Lots in a subdivision plot