In English law, a fee simple or fee simple absolute is an estate in land, a form of freehold ownership. A "fee" is a vested, inheritable, present possessory interest in land. A "fee simple" refers to a sub-category of such interests that features an absence of any temporal condition limiting its durational period under common law, whereas the highest possible form of ownership interest that can be held in real property is a "fee simple absolute," which is a sub-set characterized by an absence of limitations regarding the land's use. Allodial title is reserved to governments under a civil law structure. The rights of the fee-simple owner are limited by government powers of taxation, compulsory purchase, police power, and escheat, and may also be limited further by certain encumbrances or conditions in the deed, such as, for example, a condition that required the land to be used as a public park, with a reversion interest in the grantor if the condition fails; this is a fee simple conditional.
A mortgage is a legal instrument which is used to create a security interest in real property held by a lender as a security for a debt, usually a loan of money. A mortgage in itself is not a debt, it is the lender's security for a debt. It is a transfer of an interest in land from the owner to the mortgage lender, on the condition that this interest will be returned to the owner when the terms of the mortgage have been satisfied or performed. In other words, the mortgage is a security for the loan that the lender makes to the borrower.
This aims to be a complete list of the articles on real estate.
In common law, a deed is any legal instrument in writing which passes, affirms or confirms an interest, right, or property and that is signed, attested, delivered, and in some jurisdictions, sealed. It is commonly associated with transferring (conveyancing) title to property. The deed has a greater presumption of validity and is less rebuttable than an instrument signed by the party to the deed. A deed can be unilateral or bilateral. Deeds include conveyances, commissions, licenses, patents, diplomas, and conditionally powers of attorney if executed as deeds. The deed is the modern descendant of the medieval charter, and delivery is thought to symbolically replace the ancient ceremony of livery of seisin.
Title insurance is a form of indemnity insurance predominantly found in the United States and Canada which insures against financial loss from defects in title to real property and from the invalidity or unenforceability of mortgage loans. Unlike some land registration systems in countries outside the United States, US states' recorders of deeds generally do not guarantee indefeasible title to those recorded titles. Title insurance will defend against a lawsuit attacking the title or reimburse the insured for the actual monetary loss incurred up to the dollar amount of insurance provided by the policy.
Stamp duty is a tax that is levied on single property purchases or documents. A physical revenue stamp had to be attached to or impressed upon the document to show that stamp duty had been paid before the document was legally effective. More modern versions of the tax no longer require an actual stamp.
Torrens title is a land registration and land transfer system, in which a state creates and maintains a register of land holdings, which serves as the conclusive evidence of title of the person recorded on the register as the proprietor (owner), and of all other interests recorded on the register.
Recorder of deeds or Deeds registry is a government office tasked with maintaining public records and documents, especially records relating to real estate ownership that provide persons other than the owner of a property with real rights over that property.
The mortgage industry of Denmark provides borrowers with flexible and transparent loans on conditions close to the funding conditions of capital market players. Simultaneously, the covered mortgage bonds transfer market risk from the issuing mortgage bank to bond investors. Lastly, strict property appraisal rules, credit risk management by the mortgage banks, and tight regulations including the so-called 'balance principle', have also historically shielded mortgage bonds from default risk. High industry concentration and automatic stabilizers also play a role in maintaining stability.
Generally, a quitclaim is a formal renunciation of a legal claim against some other person, or of a right to land. A person who quitclaims renounces or relinquishes a claim to some legal right, or transfers a legal interest in land. Originally a common law concept dating back to Medieval England, the expression is in modern times mostly restricted to North American law, where it often refers specifically to a transfer of ownership or some other interest in real property.
A cadastre or cadaster is a comprehensive recording of the real estate or real property's metes-and-bounds of a country. Often it is represented graphically in a cadastral map.
Land registration is any of various systems by which matters concerning ownership, possession, or other rights in land are formally recorded to provide evidence of title, facilitate transactions, and prevent unlawful disposal. The information recorded and the protection provided by land registration varies widely by jurisdiction.
In real estate business and law, a title search or property title search is the process of examining public records and retrieving documents on the history of a piece of real property to determine and confirm property's legal ownership, and find out what claims or liens are on the property. A title search is also performed when an owner wishes to mortgage property and the bank requires the owner to insure this transaction.
A grantor–grantee index is a general term for two lists of real property transfers maintained in alphabetical order of the last name of the parties transferring the property. One list is the grantor index, an alphabetic list of sellers (grantors). The other list is the grantee index, an alphabetic list of purchasers (grantees).
Mortgage fraud refers to an intentional misstatement, misrepresentation, or omission of information relied upon by an underwriter or lender to fund, purchase, or insure a loan secured by real property.
A grant deed is used in some states and jurisdictions for the sale or other transfer of real property from one person or entity to another person or entity. Each party transferring an interest in the property, or "grantor", is required to sign it. The signatures must be acknowledged before a notary public or other official authorized by law to administer oaths.
Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. (MERS) is an American privately held corporation. On October 5, 2018, Intercontinental Exchange and MERS announced that ICE had acquired all of MERS. MERS is a separate and distinct corporation that serves as a nominee on mortgages after the turn of the century and is owned by holding company MERSCORP Holdings, Inc., which owns and operates an electronic registry known as the MERS system, which is designed to track servicing rights and ownership of mortgages in the United States. According to the Department of the Treasury, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Federal Housing Finance Agency, MERS is an agent for lenders without any reference to MERS as a principal.
The vast majority of states in the United States employ a system of recording legal instruments that affect the title of real estate as the exclusive means for publicly documenting land titles and interests. This system differs significantly from land registration systems, such as the Torrens system that have been adopted in a few states. The principal difference is that the recording system does not determine who owns the title or interest involved, which is ultimately determined through litigation in the courts. The system provides a framework for determining who the law will protect in relation to those titles and interests when a dispute arises.
In English common law, real property, real estate, realty, or immovable property is land which is the property of some person and all structures integrated with or affixed to the land, including crops, buildings, machinery, wells, dams, ponds, mines, canals, and roads, among other things. The term is historic, arising from the now-discontinued form of action, which distinguished between real property disputes and personal property disputes. Personal property, or personalty, was, and continues to be, all property that is not real property.
Land registration in Scots law is the system of public registration of land, and associated real rights. Scotland has one of the oldest systems of land registration in the world.Registration of deeds is extremely important as it constitutes the third stage of the creation and transfer on real rights.
