Law School

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Landlord-tenant law combines traditional Property doctrine with contract principles and modern statutory protections.
The first task is to classify the tenant’s possessory estate. A tenancy for years lasts for a fixed period. A periodic tenancy renews for successive periods. A tenancy at will continues indefinitely subject to termination. A tenancy at sufferance describes a holdover after lawful possession has ended.
The lease must then be analyzed as a contract.
An assignment transfers the tenant’s entire remaining leasehold interest. A sublease transfers less than the entire remainder.
After an assignment, the landlord and assignee may enter privity of estate, while the original landlord and original tenant may remain in privity of contract. Assignment therefore does not automatically release the original tenant. A novation or other release may be required.
The covenant of quiet enjoyment protects possession against substantial landlord interference. Constructive eviction traditionally requires substantial interference attributable to the landlord and ordinarily requires the tenant to leave within a reasonable time.
The implied warranty of habitability protects residential tenants against serious conditions affecting basic human habitation and may permit remedies even when the tenant remains.
Tenants also owe duties involving rent, waste, lawful use, and compliance with valid lease terms.
Modern statutes may regulate habitability, retaliation, security deposits, termination, eviction procedure, and other aspects of the relationship.
The best examination method is therefore to analyze every lease twice:
As a conveyance of a possessory estate.
As a contract creating mutual obligations.
Then identify privity, property covenants, statutory protections, and remedies.
That method captures the defining feature of modern landlord-tenant law: possession and contract operate together.
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Concurrent ownership exists when more than one person owns rights in the same property at the same time. The three principal forms are tenancy in common, joint tenancy, and tenancy by the entirety.
A tenancy in common is the modern default. Each cotenant owns a separate fractional interest, possesses an equal right to use the whole property, and has no survivorship right. The interest may ordinarily be transferred during life or at death.
A joint tenancy includes a right of survivorship. When one joint tenant dies, the surviving joint tenants ordinarily continue ownership without the deceased tenant’s interest passing through a will. Traditional law required the unities of time, title, interest, and possession. Clear survivorship language is generally important.
A joint tenant may ordinarily sever the joint tenancy by transferring that tenant’s interest. Mortgage severance may depend on whether the jurisdiction follows title theory or lien theory.
A tenancy by the entirety is available to married spouses in some jurisdictions and typically includes survivorship, equal possession, restricted unilateral severance, and protection from some individual creditors.
All cotenants generally have an equal right to possess the whole property regardless of ownership percentage.
An ouster occurs when one cotenant wrongfully excludes another. Mere exclusive occupancy ordinarily is insufficient. Ouster may affect rent liability, ejectment, partition, and adverse-possession analysis.
A cotenant in personal possession ordinarily does not owe rent to nonoccupying cotenants absent ouster, agreement, or statute. A cotenant who receives rental income from third parties generally must account for the other owners’ proportionate shares.
Necessary expenses such as taxes, certain mortgage payments, insurance, and essential repairs may support contribution. Voluntary improvements ordinarily do not, although the increase in property value attributable to an improvement may be credited during partition or accounting.
A cotenant may also be liable for waste that harms common property.
A cotenant ordinarily may seek partition. Partition in kind physically divides the property and has historically been preferred when practicable. Partition by sale converts the property into proceeds when physical division is impracticable or would substantially impair value.
Finally, adverse possession by one cotenant against another is difficult because every cotenant begins with a lawful right to possession. Clear ouster or repudiation is generally required before possession becomes hostile.
The central analytical principle is:
Concurrent ownership divides ownership interests without necessarily dividing possession.
A student who keeps ownership percentage, possession, income, expenses, survivorship, transfer, and partition separate will be able to analyze most concurrent-ownership problems with precision.
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The Law School Podcast and 1L Study Aide webpage supplements law-school and Bar Exam study with strategies, condensed rules, quizzes, and flashcards.
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Estates and future interests are the grammar of Property. The student’s first task is classification. A fee simple absolute is potentially infinite and freely transferable, devisable, and descendible.
A fee simple determinable ends automatically upon the triggering event and is followed by a possibility of reverter.
A fee simple subject to condition subsequent does not end automatically. The grantor must exercise a right of entry.
A fee simple subject to executory limitation automatically shifts to another transferee, who holds an executory interest.
A life estate lasts for the life of a specified person. A life estate may also be measured by another person’s life. Life tenants are subject to rules against voluntary, permissive, and ameliorative waste.
Future interests retained by a grantor include reversions, possibilities of reverter, and rights of entry.
Future interests in transferees include remainders and executory interests.
A remainder waits for the natural end of the preceding estate. It may be indefeasibly vested, vested subject to complete divestment, vested subject to open, or contingent.
Executory interests cut short another estate or divest the grantor. They may be shifting or springing.
The traditional Rule Against Perpetuities acts as a validity screen for certain future interests. Students should identify the interest, determine whether the Rule applies, identify the vesting condition, find possible validating lives, and ask whether vesting could occur more than twenty-one years after all relevant lives in being have died.
The most important examination lesson is procedural:
Identify the present estate.
Identify every future interest.
Classify each interest precisely.
Apply defeasibility rules.
Apply RAP if relevant.
Then determine possession.
Precise classification comes before argument. Once the interests are correctly identified, the rest of the Property analysis becomes substantially easier.
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The Law School Podcast and 1L Study Aide webpage supplements law-school and Bar Exam study with strategies, condensed rules, quizzes, and flashcards.
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🎧 EPISODE SUMMARY 🎧
Sunday finishes the Fall Launch by combining defenses with an exam system.
Defenses fall into failure of proof, justification, or excuse.
Self-defense (justification) allows reasonable force against imminent unlawful force.
Key elements:
Unlawful threat & imminence.

Belief & reasonableness.

Proportionality.

Initial aggressor status & retreat.

Deadly force requires imminent death/serious injury. Retreat rules vary (duty to retreat vs. stand-your-ground).
Defense of others relies on defender’s reasonable belief. Defense of property permits nondeadly force only.
Necessity justifies conduct to prevent greater harm from natural circumstances (traditionally excludes intentional homicide).
Duress excuses conduct forced by threats of death/serious harm (traditionally excludes murder).
Mistake of fact negates specific intent (honest mistake) or general intent (honest & reasonable mistake).
Mistake of law rarely excuses, except for official reliance or collateral legal mistakes.
Voluntary intoxication may negate specific intent only. Involuntary intoxication acts as a broader excuse.
Insanity tests: M’Naghten (cognitive), Irresistible Impulse (volitional), MPC (substantial capacity), Durham (product test).
Infancy uses age presumptions. Entrapment requires government inducement and lack of predisposition (subjective test).
The twelve-step exam framework:
Offenses & Elements.

Actus Reus & Mens Rea.

Concurrence & Causation.

Grading & Inchoate Liability.

Secondary Liability & Defenses.

Merger & Conclusion.

Key traps to avoid:
Motive ≠ Mens Rea; Omissions require legal duty.

Recklessness ≠ Negligence; Homicide requires causation.

Property crimes depend on possession vs. title.

Preparation ≠ Attempt; Presence ≠ Accomplice.

Conspiracy does not merge into completed crime.

The capstone integration requires evaluating each actor separately.
Analyze Criminal Law offense by offense, element by element, and defendant by defendant.
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🎧 EPISODE SUMMARY 🎧Criminal liability can arise before, during, or around completion of an offense.
Key doctrines include:
Attempt.

Solicitation.

Conspiracy.

Attempt requires specific intent to commit the target offense plus acts beyond preparation.
For example, attempted murder requires intent to kill; recklessness is insufficient.
Attempt tests include:
Last-act.

Dangerous proximity.

Model Penal Code substantial step.

The last-act test requires conduct at the final step.
The dangerous-proximity test evaluates how close the defendant came to completion.
The unequivocality test requires conduct that unambiguously shows criminal purpose.
The MPC substantial-step test requires a substantial step strongly corroborating criminal purpose.
Factual impossibility is not a defense, whereas legal impossibility traditionally may be.
Abandonment is generally not recognized at common law once complete, though the MPC recognizes voluntary renunciation.
Solicitation occurs upon asking another to commit a crime with intent that it be committed.
Conspiracy requires an agreement and intent to achieve the unlawful objective, plus an overt act where required.
Common law uses a bilateral approach requiring two culpable parties, while the MPC allows a unilateral conspiracy.
Pinkerton liability holds conspirators liable for foreseeable co-conspirator crimes in furtherance of the conspiracy.
Withdrawal from a conspiracy does not erase past liability but may limit future crimes.
Attempt and solicitation merge into the completed offense, but conspiracy does not.
Accomplice liability requires intentional assistance or encouragement; mere presence or knowledge is insufficient.
An accessory after the fact assists a felon only after the crime is completed to hinder arrest or prosecution.
Each theory of criminal responsibility must be precisely identified.
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