Property Law Developments—Joseph William Singer

Two Bronx communities organized as co-ops require references from three co-op members in order to buy units. After using testers, the Fair Housing Justice Center has filed a lawsuit arguing that this requirement has a discriminatory effect when existing co-op members are overwhelmingly white and when the requirement was not consistently applied. Read article.

A court reaffirmed a traditional rule of property law in a little litigated issue, holding that an appurtenant easement attached to a dominant estate and intended to benefit the owner of that land cannot be severed and transfered to someone who is not an owner of property intended to be benefited by the easement. Rosen v. Keeler, 2010 WL 288997  (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. 2010). The case is significant because recent changes in real property law have increased the powers of owners to invent new kinds of property rights and to  disentangle the strands in the bundle of rights that goes along with ownership. This ruling reaffirms the traditional view that certain packages of rights must go together and cannot be disaggregated among multiple  owners. See article.