Real Estate Salesperson Exam (National Portion): Real vs. Personal Property and Legal Descriptions Concepts
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Overview
This chapter explains what counts as real estate and how land is described on paper. Questions often ask whether an item stays with the house, which characteristic of land explains a market effect, or how many acres a legal description covers.
Real property is land and everything permanently attached to it. Personal property can be moved. A fixture was once personal property but is now attached, so it goes with the house unless the contract says otherwise. Courts look at the method of attachment, adaptation, the relationship of the parties, intention, and agreement (MARIA). A tenant's business equipment is a trade fixture and may be removed before the lease ends. Crops planted each year are emblements.
Land is immobile, indestructible, and unique (non-homogeneous). Its economic traits are scarcity, improvements, permanence of investment, and area preference, also called situs. A legal description must locate the parcel exactly: metes and bounds uses directions and distances from a point of beginning, lot and block uses a recorded plat, and the rectangular survey uses townships of 36 sections, each of 640 acres.
Key concepts
Fixture
Personal property that has been attached to real estate so that it becomes part of the real property and transfers with it.
Memory tipWired-in, built-in, or custom-fitted usually means fixture.
Trade fixture
An item a tenant attaches for business use; it stays the tenant's personal property and may be removed before the lease ends.
Memory tipBusiness tenant's ovens and shelves
Emblements
Annual crops produced by labor, treated as personal property of the person who planted them.
Memory tipPlanted every year = emblements
Physical characteristics
Land is immobile, indestructible, and unique (non-homogeneous).
Memory tipUniqueness is why specific performance is possible.
Metes and bounds
A legal description that follows directions and distances around a parcel from a point of beginning and back to it.
Memory tipMust close at the point of beginning
Rectangular survey
A legal description system using townships (6 miles square, 36 sections) and sections (1 square mile, 640 acres).
Memory tipMultiply the fractions by 640 acres.
Often tested
- A wired-in chandelier is a fixture; exclude it in writing if the seller wants to keep it.
- Area preference (situs) is an economic, not physical, characteristic.
- A street address is not a legal description.
- NE 1/4 of the SW 1/4 = 640 × 1/4 × 1/4 = 40 acres.
3 sample questions
Verified practice questions from this unit.
Question 1. Which method of legal description uses compass directions and distances from a point of beginning?
- ① Street address
- ② Lot and block
- ③ Rectangular (government) survey
- ④ Metes and bounds
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Answer: ④ Metes and bounds
Key point: Metes and bounds = directions + distances, returns to start
A metes and bounds description starts at a point of beginning, follows directions (bounds) and distances (metes) around the parcel, and must return to the point of beginning to close.
Wrong choices
- Lot and block: Lot and block refers to a lot number on a recorded plat map.
- Rectangular (government) survey: The rectangular survey uses townships, ranges, and sections.
- Street address: A street address is not a legal description.
Question 2. In the rectangular (government) survey system, how many sections are in a standard township?
- ① 36
- ② 24
- ③ 16
- ④ 640
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Answer: ① 36
Key point: Township = 6 × 6 miles = 36 sections
A standard township is 6 miles on each side. It is divided into one-mile-square sections, so it has 6 × 6 = 36 sections. Each section contains 640 acres.
Wrong choices
- 24: A township is 6 miles by 6 miles, which makes 36 one-mile sections.
- 640: 640 is the number of acres in one section, not the number of sections.
- 16: 16 is too few; a township has 6 rows of 6 sections.
Question 3. A section in the rectangular survey system contains how many acres?
- ① 160 acres
- ② 43,560 acres
- ③ 36 acres
- ④ 640 acres
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Answer: ④ 640 acres
Key point: 1 section = 1 square mile = 640 acres
One section is one square mile and contains 640 acres. A quarter section is 160 acres. Remember that one acre is 43,560 square feet.
Wrong choices
- 43,560 acres: 43,560 is the number of square feet in one acre.
- 36 acres: 36 is the number of sections in a township.
- 160 acres: 160 acres is a quarter section.
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