What Is Real Estate - QuestionsCity

Last Updated on August 16, 2021 by

If you own a chair, motor car, or farm tool, it can be stolen, lost, or destroyed. If you went to court to recover such property, you could only be compensated for it if it were lost or destroyed. But if you owned land, and for some reason, the land was taken from you, the courts could restore the land itself to you. The thing itself, in Latin, is rev, from which comes our word “real”. In other words, the land was “real” property, or a “real” estate, as compared to personal property.

It was based on this difference that the English law in ancient times established two kinds of property, real property (or real estate, as we now call it), and personal property. In early times, land (real property) was considered to be of the greatest value. Today, there may be other kinds of property that are considered of greater value by some people. For example, owning shares of stock in a company, or the right to use patents in manufacturing goods and machinery may sometimes be of value.

In feudal days when the laws were being established, real property was not the only land, but everything fixed to it, such as trees, buildings, and everything fixed to the buildings. And this distinction still holds today. For example, a lamp on a table is not fixed to the house and is personal property, removable should the house be sold. If you screw it to the wall and intend it to remain there, it then becomes a fixture and goes with the house.

In transferring real estate from one person to another, a deed must officially be recorded with the Land Commission for assessment. The law recognizes transactions concerning real estate in the order in which they are recorded. For this reason, before a person buys land he has the public records examined to make sure that the title is “clear”—that is, that there are no claims against the land or rights held on it by other persons.