Appellate Civil Litigation - Property Law - Exam, Exams of Property Law

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Final Examination

Law 715 – LS1 – Property

Professor Marc-Tizoc González

Spring 2011

1. You have two and a half (2.5) hours to complete this exam.
2. This is a closed book exam.
3. Your final examination consists of two (2) essay questions that count equally for your final exam grade. Grades will turn on your ability to articulate clearly and reflect critically on what you have learned in this course. Demonstrating familiarity with material not covered in the course will not enhance your grade.
4. If you do not use ExamSoft, please write your responses in black or blue ink, using the blue books provided. Write legibly on every other line, using only one side of each blue book page to facilitate instructor reading and comments.

N.B. Use style and headings to indicate your essay’s thoughtful organization and thereby enhance how you present your legal analysis. I strongly encourage you to spend at least 15 minutes brainstorming, organizing and outlining your answer before writing. Then use your outline points as headings and subheadings to guide your reader.

5. Write your exam number on your exam envelope. Put your correct class section and student exam number at the top of this page, each page of questions and each blue book. DO NOT use your name, student ID number or Social Security Number on any exam materials.
6. At the conclusion of the exam, return all test materials, including blue books, scratch paper, and this exam packet to the envelope and submit it to the proctor. DO NOT seal the envelope. Students who do not return all exam materials at the end of the exam may receive a failing grade.

GOOD LUCK!

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Part I: Two Essay Questions Recommended Time: 1 hour and 15 minutes per question , using at least 15 minutes to brainstorm, organize and outline each essay

First Question

Mariano Vallejo was a former Mexican general of Alto California, who was relieved of his duties by the armed uprising remembered as the Bear Flag Revolt of 1846. After the United States annexed California following the end of its war with México (in 1848), the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo briefly incorporated California as a US territory until it was admitted as a state of the union in 1850. Vallejo was an influential member of the new state’s constitutional convention and elected as a member of its first state senate. Just outside his eponymous town in Solano County, the last descendent of Mariano’s line (and inheritor of his once great estate) has died. A firm believer in the importance of taking care of one’s family first, Octavio Vallejo has devised his estate to his wife, children and grandchildren in a valid will.

Fresh from your first year at GGU Law, you are interning as a summer law clerk in the office of Octavio’s attorney, a distinguished solo practitioner who now focuses on appellate civil litigation but was old friends with the landowner and helped draft his will. He is now representing the estate and asks you to review several excerpts of the will in order to prepare yourself to discuss its preliminary property law issues with him in a couple of hours. The will’s excerpts include:

“To my darling wife, Antonia, upon my death, I devise my remaining interest in our family home, which I inherited from my great grandfather, for her residence and enjoyment, so long as she does not remarry and so long as she uses it as her primary residence, but if she should remarry, then our home should go to my youngest daughter, Felicitas.

“To my eldest son and his heirs, the prodigal Benicio, upon my death I devise my condominium in San Francisco, for him to enjoy so long as he uses it for his primary residence, but if he should stop living there, then it should pass to his sister, Clara, if she be then living, and if not, then to be divided equally between all of her issue then living.

“To my first daughter, the wise and kind Clara, go my holdings bordering our namesake town of Vallejo, which rents have enabled me to live comfortably in my twilight years, for the use of maintaining her mother, my beloved, in the family home for so long as she should reside there, and then to be used free of restriction and with the right to produce and harvest for her own benefit, except that upon Clara’s death, the holdings should pass to her son, my first grandchild, Diego.

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“To my second son, brave Ezequiel, go the fallow fields that sweepingly and completely surround our family home, without any reservation or limitation, where in older days we together rode our horses, and where he once fell, breaking his leg, but in arising he demonstrated that greatness of heart that shall forever serve him in life.

“Finally, to my youngest daughter, the beauteous Felicitas, I give my great grandfather’s house in Sonoma, which she should not rent or sell, and which should then go to all of her children alive at the time of her death, in equal share.

“Any remaining property of my estate shall be divided equally amongst my heirs, namely my beautiful wife, our loving children and all the grandchildren with which God may see fit to grace us.”

Identify and discuss the relevant property law doctrines, using headings to make clear your essay’s organization, and including any relevant policy considerations. Don’t limit your discussion to California law; instead discuss the doctrines generally at common law, as modified by statute, majority and minority rules, etc.

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Second Question

An owner of property desires to create a residential housing development that will reflect his idealized vision of a small beach town. Without a lawyer’s help, he writes a plan to subdivide his property into 76 parcels that will each be restricted to use as a single-family home and sketches a plat showing the residential parcels, plus four parcels that are specially notated as “convenience store, grocery market, park and service station.” The plat also shows various roads of widths specified as “one lane” or “two lanes.” The owner uses the writing and plat to market the new subdivision using classic Fifties-esque Americana imagery, promising to be the “Smallville of the Twenty-First Century” to potential buyers.

An initial group of buyers starts negotiating to purchase the parcels. At this time, however, none of the initial conveyances specify any residential use restrictions though they do specify three different “use grants” for electrical, telephone and sewage utilities: 10 contiguous parcels are sold in this way. With the proceeds of these initial sales, the owner hires an attorney to file a declaration with the county recorder, affirming the residential restrictions on all of the 76 parcels and incorporating by reference the earlier plat. Sixty more parcels are sold in the next batch of sales. In addition to utility “use grants,” each of these deeds enumerates several use restrictions, notably covenanting to prohibit use of the land for “commercial purposes” and restricting the land to residential use with only one dwelling per lot “in perpetuity.”

The housing market then cools, leaving the owner with six unsold parcels that were originally intended for residential use, so he shifts his focus to leasing the parcels specified in the plat for a convenience store, grocery market and service station and enters into three separate long-term leases (each for five years), where the lessees will develop the properties for the specified use, each agreeing not to change the particular commercial use throughout the term of the lease and with rents determined monthly from a percentage of the businesses’ gross receipts.

Two years pass, and the owner still cannot sell his remaining six parcels as single-family homes, so he determines to change their use, making four of them into a medium-density condominium complex and merging the final two parcels in order to accommodate a Tudor-style mansion, where he plans to reside.

Seeking to reflect his neighborly values, the owner mails a letter to all 70 buyers, explaining that changes in the housing market have compelled him to go with this alternative. In response, a mixed group of the original and later group of buyers threatens to sue the owner, seeking injunctive relief against the proposed uses of the remaining six parcels.

As a summer law clerk in the firm representing the owner, describe the property law doctrines underlying both sides of this nascent conflict, including any relevant policy issues. Assume that the land is not zoned, and conclude your essay by opining whether the owner should go ahead with his plan, and if so what sort of legal liabilities he may confront.

END OF EXAM