Real Estate Legal Terms and Definitions

The following information is provided for the purpose of giving a basic understanding of real estate terms for the average consumer. What's listed on this website is for informational basis only. If you are concerned about your rights or with legal real estate issues that might effect you directly or indirectly, please seek professional advice from a real estate attorney or broker.

Legal Life Estates

Curtesy: A widower's portion of his wife's assets that were acquired during the course of their marriage. Curtesy usually amounts to one third of the assets.

Dower: A widow's portion of her husband's assets that were acquired during the course of their marriage. The dower, usually amounting to one third, applies even if the deceased husband wills her a portion less than this.

The state of Massachusetts has abolished the distinction between dower and curtesy (now all right are called dower). Legislature abolished the rights of dower except as to those lands owned at the time of death. It is not necessary to obtain a release of dower or curtesy rights in a deed. A person dissatisfied with their deceased spouses' wills may choose to exercise their waiver right under Massachusetts Law of Decent.

Homestead: Property designated by a householder as the householder's home and protected by law from forced sale to meet debts. Declaring homestead may not release a homeowner from his/her debts. In many cases it only protects the equity in a home. One should seek legal advice from an attorney in reference to homestead.

Easements: A right, such as a right of way, afforded a person to make limited use of another's real property.

Easement by deed: An easement can be created by deed when a grantor conveys a limited easement right to his or her property or conveys all his or her right in a specific property but retains or reserves an easement

Easement by prescription: a continuous use of uninterrupted use without the owner's permission. The owner had knowledge of the use and took no action for a prescribe period of time. In Massachusetts the period is 20 years.

Easement by necessity: Created with the sell conveys a parcel of land and the buyer has no way to reach the property except by crossing the seller's land.

Tenancy: Possession or occupancy of lands, buildings, or other property by title, under a lease, or on payment of rent. Massachusetts presumed that when a deed conveys land to two or more people or to a husband and a wife, except if it is a mortgage, a devise, or conveyance in trust, it is conveying ownership as an estate in common, unless there is evidence that another form of ownership was intended.

• Holdover tenancy: A tenancy that arises when one remains in possession of property after the expiration of the previous tenancy (as one under a lease), that may be established as a tenancy at will by the recognition of the landlord (as by accepting rent), and that may sometimes be statutorily converted to a periodic tenancy for the same or a different term than that of the original tenancy holdover tenancy> called also tenancy at sufferance.
• Joint tenancy: A tenancy in which two or more parties hold equal and simultaneously created interests in the same property and in which title to the entire property is to remain to the survivors upon the death of one of them (as a spouse) and so on to the last survivor.
• Life tenancy: The tenancy of one with a life estate. Life Estate: A freehold estate limited in duration to the life of the owner or the life or some other designated person(s). A life estate is inheritable and cannot be devised. It passes to future owners according to the provisions of the life estate. 
• Legal Life Estate: A form of life estate established by state law. It is effective automatically when certain events occur. Downer, Curtesy, and homestead are the legal life estates currently used in some states.
• Periodic tenancy: a tenancy that is carried forward by specified time periods (as months) without a lease and that may be terminated by the landlord or tenant after giving proper notice.
• Tenancy at will: a tenancy that is terminable at the will of the landlord or tenant provided that applicable statutory requirements for notice are met.
• Tenancy by the entirety: a tenancy that is shared by spouses who are considered one person in law and have the rights of survivorship inherent in joint tenancy and that becomes a tenancy in common in the event of divorce tenancy by the entirety cannot be encumbered by one tenant acting alone.
• Tenancy in common: a tenancy in which two or more parties share ownership of property but have no right to each other's interest (as upon the death of another tenant.
• Testamentary Trust (and Living) A real estate owner may provide for their own financial care or someone by establishing a trust. The trust is an agreement during the property owner's lifetime or established by will after the owner's death 

Deed Restrictions: Are covenants and restrictions that effect the use of land. May be imposed by the owner and included in the seller's deed to the buyer. Restrictive covenants are imposed by a developer or subdivider to maintain specific standards in a subdivision. Usually these restrictive covenants are listed in the original development plans for the subdivision filed in the public record.

Liens: A charge against property that provides security for a debt or an obligations of the property owner. If the debt is not repaid the lienholder is entitled to have the debt satisfied from the proceeds of a court-ordered or forced sale of the property.

Lot and Block: System uses lot and block numbers referred to in a plat map filed in the public records of the county where the land is located. The system is often used to describe property in subdivisions.

Metes and Bonds: A method used to describe real estate. Metes means distance and bounds means compass directions or angles. The method relies on a property's physical features to determine the boundaries and measurements of the parcel.

• Point of Beginning: A metes and bound descriptions starts at a designated place on the parcel and is called point of beginning. The measurement ends at the point of beginning.

• Monuments: Fixed objects used to identify the Point of Beginning, the ends of boundary segments, or the location of intersecting boundaries. Monuments may be a natural object or may be a manmade object. 

Rectangular Survey System: A Government survey system established by Congress in 1785 to standardize the description of land acquired by the newly formed federal government. Devided land into rectangles, the survey provided land descriptions by describing the rectangle(s) in which the land was located. The system is based on two sets of intersecting lines: Principal meridians and base lines.

Time Share: Permits multiple purchasers to buy interest in real estate. Each shareholder receives the right to use the facility for a certain period of time. Share owners use of the property are limited to the contractual period.

Trust: A device by which one person transfers ownership of property to someone to hold to manage for the benefit of a third party.