Property Law Flashcards

Oregon allocates surface water rights primarily under:

Answer: The prior appropriation doctrine, awarding priority based on first beneficial use

Oregon follows the prior appropriation doctrine (ORS Chapter 537) — 'first in time, first in right' — under which water rights are based on the date of first beneficial use rather than land adjacency.

A commercial building that was lawfully built before a new zoning ordinance was enacted but now violates the current zoning code is best described as:

Answer: A nonconforming use or structure allowed to continue despite the code change

A nonconforming use or structure predates the enactment of the zoning ordinance and is grandfathered in, though zoning law typically restricts expansion or reconstruction after substantial destruction.

Under Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council, a government regulation that denies a landowner all economically beneficial use of their land is:

Answer: A per se regulatory taking requiring just compensation unless the restriction inheres in background property law

Lucas established that a regulation eliminating all economic value of land is a categorical regulatory taking requiring just compensation, unless the restriction is grounded in background principles of nuisance or property law.

Constructive notice in the recording system means a subsequent purchaser is legally charged with knowledge of:

Answer: All instruments properly recorded in the chain of title, whether or not actually read

Constructive notice is the legal imputation of knowledge of all properly recorded instruments in the chain of title, regardless of whether the subsequent purchaser actually searched or reviewed those records.

Under the doctrine of merger in easement law, an easement is extinguished when:

Answer: The same person acquires fee simple ownership of both the dominant and servient estates

When one person acquires full ownership of both the dominant estate (benefited by the easement) and the servient estate (burdened by it), the easement merges into the fee and is extinguished.

A lis pendens recorded in the county real property records serves to:

Answer: Provide constructive notice to subsequent purchasers that the property is subject to pending litigation

A lis pendens gives constructive notice that litigation affecting title or possession of the property is pending; anyone who acquires the property after recording takes it subject to the outcome of that litigation.

The doctrine of tacking in adverse possession permits a claimant to:

Answer: Add their period of possession to that of a prior adverse possessor in privity in order to satisfy the statutory period

Tacking allows an adverse possessor to add their period of possession to a prior adverse possessor's period, provided there is privity of possession between them (such as a deed or voluntary transfer of possession), to meet the statutory period.