Property Law Developments—Joseph William Singer

The New Jersey legislature joined an increasing number of states that have passed statutes prohibiting enforcement of transfer fee obligations. 2010 N.J. Laws 102, codified at  N.J. Stat. 46:3-28 to -33. read article The act applies prospectively only. Transfer fee obligations are duties to pay moneys to a prior seller of the land every time it is sold. Such fees restrain alienation of land and were held to constitute illegal vestiges of feudalism in the mid-nineteenth century. See DePeyster v. Michael, 6 N.Y. 467 (1852).

In a straight-forward application of the usual rule, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court recognized an exception to the statute of frauds by enforcing an oral promise to convey land when the promisee relied on the promise and built a house on the land. In this case, the promise was made by parents to their son and daughter. The daughter built a home on the land with the parents’ assistance and then asked for a deed to the land. When the parents refused, she sued them seeking a court order to them to transfer title to the land to her and the court granted her request. Harvey v. Dow, 11 A.3d 303 (Me. 2011).

The Supreme Judicial Court of Maine has created an exception to the presumption that prescriptive use of another’s property is non-permissive when the servient estate is owned by a family member. Androkites v. White, 10 A.3d 677 (Me. 2010). The court held that, in such cases, it is more likely that the use is permissive and thus the usual presumption is overcome. A few states presume use to be permissive in all cases while most states retain the same presumption of nonpermissiveness for both adverse possession claims and prescriptive easement claims.

Governor Jack Markell has signed a bill adding Delaware to the list of states that authorize the creation of civil unions for same-sex couples that have the same rights as married couples under state law. read article The list of states that recognizes civil unions now includes California, Delaware, Hawai`i, Illinois, Nevada,New Jersey, Oregon, and Washington. States that recognize domestic partnership arrangements that have more limited rights include Colorado, Maine, Maryland, and Wisconsin. read article

Jurisdictions that authorize same-sex marriage are Connecticut, District of Columbia, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont. In California, 18,000 couples were married before the constitutional amendment was approved abolishing same-sex marriage. New York and Maryland recognize marriages celebrated in states that recognize them. Rhode Island recognizes out-of-state same-sex marriages for some purposes, while California, Illinois, New Jersey, and New Mexico recognizes such marriages as civil unions. read article