Where The Term Real Estate Came From.

Where The Term Real Estate Came From.

A Brief History And Origins of Real Estate.

Definition: Real Estate A piece of land, including the air above it and the ground below it, any buildings or structures on it also called realty, and improvements there to, also called real property.

In law, the word real means relating to a thing (res/rei, thing, from O.Fr. reel, from L.L. realis "actual," from Latin. res, "matter, thing"), as distinguished from a person. Thus the law broadly distinguishes between "real" property (land and anything affixed to it) and "personal" property (everything else, e.g., clothing, furniture, money).

Our ancestors abandoned the hunter-gatherer lifestyle gradually over the period from 30,000 B.C. to 15,000 B.C. This change was far from global and hunter-gatherer societies still survive in some areas of the world today, but it did mark a transition toward an agrarian society.

A transition that also heralded the advent of home ownership, the birth of home ownership and real estate.

Staking A Claim

Many agrarian systems progressed like this: Fertile plains were staked out and settled in a might-makes-right manner in which those who could defend the land were those who kept it. Eventually, a system of tribal leaders developed, and those who had the approval of the tribe would disperse lands, settle disputes and require a payment from all his subjects.

The shift toward more and more powerful tribal leaders culminated in a pooling of labor resources, to direct efforts. Irrigation channels were dug, strongholds were built, farming methods improved and temples were erected.

With the land improvements, populations also exploded. Now, where a family of hunter-gatherers might be able to support one or two children at best, farmers could produce several children. The increased fertility also meant increased available laborers.

In return for the sacrifice of familiarity, people living in these small societies gained the safety of numbers. A well-fed army easily repelled any desperate raiders. In return for this security, the people all paid homage to the lord or king who claimed ownership of the land - which, in essence was the first system of rent.

As these farming villages grew into cities, the leading families maintained ownership by right of lineage - their ancestors had clubbed all other challengers senseless - thus becoming the kings, pharaohs, daimyos and the heads of other feudal dynasties.

An invaluable glimpse of legal history regulating the most valuable asset of them all: land. In medieval times, land was the sole form of wealth.

Land ownership in feudal times, as with most objects, depended primarily on possession:

• You had it, you owned it.
• You wanted it, you fought for it.
• You found it, you kept it.

There were no courts or police force ready to recognize or enforce "legal rights" as we know them today.

A king and a feudal system is establish.

This system of labor-for-protection developed into two separate systems in most countries: taxes and tenancy. Royal families spread their wealth to friends, signing away titles and deeds to lands that allowed the holders to collect the revenues (rent) produced by the peasants living on the land.

On top of this rent, all the people within a ruler's realm were generally required to pay a tax. Many other demands were made by a king or a ruling Nobleman, such as military service, and they were grudgingly met because these rulers owned the land not only by birthright, but by military might as well.

Rulers could be overthrown by other rulers, and sometimes by peasants, but a new ruler would sit on the throne and the average peasant could rarely notice a difference.

People were eventually able to trade with other kingdoms and the general level of wealth increased, giving rise to a merchant class as well as specialized laborers - the tradesmen, who were able to earn a living with their skills and not by their crops.

This, in turn, resulted in non-agrarian shops and houses that still paid rent and taxes to the various lords and kings, but were bought, sold and rented among the common folk rather than by the royal class.

Richer merchants became the first common-born landlords and gained wealth and status. These merchants did not own the land, but they owned the houses on it.

What happen lands with titles were broken into smaller parcels and sold on a free market of sorts, but the people with the money to buy the deeds were either merchants or former aristocrats who managed to escape from being depose or killed by revolutionary fervor.

Peasants had yet to make much progress from the original farming-tribesmen 30,000 years before them.

The Development and Origins of Modern Real Estate.

The conceptual difference was between immovable property, which would transfer title along with the land, and movable property, which a person would retain title to.

The oldest use of the term "Real Estate" that has been preserved in historical records was in 1666.

The use of "real" to refer to land also reflects the ancient preference for land and the ownership thereof (and the owners thereof). This, in turn reflects the values of the medieval feudal system, which is the ultimate root of the common law.

The word Real is derived from "royal" (The word royal-and its Spanish cognate real-come from the related Latin word rex-regis, meaning king. For hundreds of years the Royal family / King owned the land, and the peasants paid rent or property taxes to be on the Royal's land (Estates). Thus, the term Real Estate.

Today, just like hundreds of years in the past, we pay property taxes to the government, or rent to be on the government's land. However, the "real" in "real property" is derived from the Latin for "thing.

Estates and Ownership Define:

The underlying principle of the system was that nobody owned land but the king. The expressions dominion directum and dominion utile are often used to describe the relative ownership of king and lords; the former as landlord the latter as tenant.

This represents a significant difference between real estate and chattels. Chattels can be owned outright. It can also be contrasted with those countries that have an allodialsystem (absolute ownership of land). Even today, in those countries that have inherited the tenurial system, all land belongs to the Crown; persons only own an estate in the land.

The device used by the king to control and administer his land was that of tenure. Tenure was the key component of the feudal system. The king struck a bargain with a lord for a large chunk of land. The lords that held their tenure directly from the king were called tenants-in-chief or in capite

The most important of the incidents is the concept of "escheat" which allowed the land to revert back to the lord. There were two causes for escheat. The first was the death without heirs of the tenant. The second was the conviction of the tenant of a felony.

The loss of ones land, not only for oneself but also for one's heirs, led to a cruel and unusual punishment called peine forte et dure(see The Law's Hall of Horrors). A person pleading guilty to a felony lost his land to the lord. But if he died without a plea, the next of kin remained eligible to claim the property by paying relief as discussed above.

The system changed somewhat in 1290, when the Statute Quia Emptoreswas passed to prohibit further subinfeudation and allowing tenants to sell their rights without requiring the prior consent of the lord.

From this point on, the number of tenures was frozen except that the king was exempt from the Statute and he could grant additional tenures. Eventually, incidents were prohibited and socage of all kind were eliminated and replaced only by free and common variety.

Tenures were of a variety of duration known as "estates":

• The fee simple estate was the most extensive and allowed the tenant to sell or to convey by will or be transferred to the tenant's heir if he died intestate. In modern law, almost all land is held in fee simple and this is as close as one can get to absolute ownership in common law.

• Fee tail estate meant that the tenure could only be transferred to a lineal descendant. If there were no lineal descendants upon the death of the tenant, the land reverted back to the lord.

• The life estate was granted only for the life of the tenant, after which it reverted automatically to the lord.

Hope you found it interesting and gain a greater appreciation of how Real Estate began and the origins of the modern term for Real Estate.

Have a happy day, thanks for taking time to read.