An easement that is appurtenant — attached to a parcel of land rather than to a person
Also writteneasement appurtenant.
Appurtenant means belonging to the land, and an appurtenant easement is the standard example: two parcels are involved, the dominant tenement enjoys the right and the servient tenement carries the burden. Because the right is attached to the land rather than to whoever happens to own it, it passes automatically to the next owner of the dominant parcel — it "runs with the land". Course materials write it the other way round, as an easement appurtenant, and the two names mean the same thing.
How the exam asks about it
The trap is which parcel is which. The one that benefits is dominant, the one that is crossed is servient, and the exam will describe them without using either word.
Permission for a use the zoning allows only on stated conditions
A church, a school or a hospital in a residential district is the standard example: the ordinance contemplates the use but wants a hearing and conditions before it lands on a particular parcel. The use fits the zone; the permit confirms it fits this lot.
Easily confused with
Also called a special use permit. A nonconforming use is different again — it was lawful before the ordinance changed and is allowed to continue.
How the exam asks about it
Separate it from a variance. A variance excuses an owner from a requirement because compliance would cause hardship; a conditional use permit authorizes a use the ordinance already anticipated.
A private limit on land use, recorded and running with the land
Covenants, conditions and restrictions are private promises recorded against a subdivision or a parcel: no fences above four feet, no commercial use, roof materials from an approved list. They bind every subsequent owner and are enforced privately, usually by a homeowners association or a neighbor.
How the exam asks about it
When a private restriction and a public ordinance conflict, the stricter one governs. That is the answer to nearly every question that puts the two side by side.
Rezoning an area to a less intensive use or a lower density
A municipality moves a district down the intensity scale — commercial to residential, or a dense residential classification to a thinner one — usually to slow growth, protect the character of an area or match infrastructure that cannot carry more. Lawful uses that no longer fit generally continue as legal non-conforming uses rather than being shut down, but the development value of undeveloped land in the district falls with the permitted density, which is why owners of vacant land object loudest.
Easily confused with
Spot zoning also changes a classification, but the objection there is that one parcel was singled out for treatment the district around it did not get. Downzoning applies to an area and is tied back to the comprehensive plan, which is why it normally survives challenge.
How the exam asks about it
Read the direction of travel. Downzoning reduces what may be built and upzoning increases it; both are ordinary exercises of police power and neither, on its own, entitles anyone to compensation.
A right to use someone else’s land for a specific purpose
An easement is an interest in land held by someone who does not own it — the right to cross it, run a pipe under it, or keep a view over it. Because it is an interest rather than a permission, it survives a sale of the land it burdens and generally cannot be canceled at the owner’s convenience.
Easily confused with
A license is permission, revocable at will and personal to the holder. An easement is an interest in the land, and that single difference decides almost every question in this area.
How the exam asks about it
Expect to be given a fact pattern and asked to name the type. Two parcels involved means appurtenant; a utility or a company means in gross; long unpermitted use means prescription; a landlocked parcel means necessity.
A court-recognized right of access for a landlocked parcel
When land is divided so that one piece is left with no route to a public road, the law supplies an access easement over the retained land. The policy behind it is that land nobody can reach is land nobody can use.
How the exam asks about it
The words "landlocked" and "no access to a public road" are the giveaway. Distinguish it from an easement by prescription, which is earned by years of open use rather than granted by necessity.
An easement benefiting a person or company rather than a neighboring parcel
There is a servient tenement but no dominant one, because the benefit belongs to someone rather than to land. Utility lines, pipelines and railroad rights of way are the standard examples, and commercial easements in gross are assignable and long-lived.
How the exam asks about it
If the question names a power company, a pipeline or a billboard operator, it is in gross. If it names a neighboring lot, it is appurtenant.
Annual crops treated as the tenant’s personal property
Crops a tenant plants and cultivates belong to that tenant even though they are growing in someone else’s soil. If the land is sold or the tenancy ends unexpectedly, the tenant keeps the right to re-enter and harvest what they planted.
How the exam asks about it
The classic distractor is the fixture rule. Attached things normally go with the land; emblements are the deliberate exception, because the crop is the product of the tenant’s labor rather than of the land alone.
A structure that physically intrudes onto a neighboring property
A fence three feet over the line, a garage eave hanging into the next lot, a driveway that crosses a boundary. Because it is both physical and legal, it can make title unmarketable, and if it goes unchallenged long enough it may mature into a prescriptive easement.
How the exam asks about it
Usually discovered by a survey rather than an inspection, which is a detail exams use to test whether you know what a survey is for.
Any claim or right in a property held by someone other than its owner
The umbrella term. Liens are encumbrances that affect title in a monetary way; easements, deed restrictions and encroachments are encumbrances that affect the physical use of the land. Property can be sold with encumbrances on it — the buyer simply takes it subject to them.
How the exam asks about it
A frequent multiple-choice shape is "all of the following are encumbrances EXCEPT". Ownership itself is never the answer to that.
The body that enforces a community’s recorded restrictions and manages common areas
Created by the recorded declaration for a subdivision or condominium, funded by assessments, and empowered to enforce the CC&Rs. Unpaid assessments typically become a lien against the individual unit.
How the exam asks about it
Appears in disclosure questions more often than in land use ones: HOA documents, assessment history and pending special assessments are material to a buyer.
Revocable personal permission to do something on another’s land
A ticket to a ballgame is a license; so is a neighbor’s permission to fish in your pond. It creates no interest in the land, does not pass to anyone else, and can be withdrawn.
Easily confused with
Not the same word as the license a real estate salesperson holds, and the exam will occasionally use both meanings in the same section to see whether you are reading.
How the exam asks about it
Almost always tested against easement. The word "permission" and the word "revocable" both point here.
A lawful existing use that no longer matches a newly changed zoning rule
The corner shop that was legal before the block was rezoned residential. It is allowed to continue — commonly called being grandfathered — but ordinances usually forbid expanding it, and many terminate the protection if the use is abandoned or the building is destroyed.
How the exam asks about it
The distinguishing fact is timing. Non-conforming means it was legal first; a variance means permission was granted afterwards.
A shared wall on the boundary between two properties, used by both owners
Each owner typically owns the half standing on their own land and holds an easement in the other half for support. Neither may weaken or remove it alone, and the cost of keeping it up is shared.
How the exam asks about it
It is examined as an easement question. The right each owner holds in the other’s half is what makes this one wall rather than two.
A development approved as one plan rather than lot by lot, mixing uses and densities that ordinary zoning would separate
A municipality approves the whole scheme — houses, common open space, sometimes shops — as a single plan, so the density and setbacks are set for the development rather than by the zoning district each lot sits in. Buyers own their own lot and share the common areas through an association, which is what makes a PUD look like a condominium on paper and behave like fee ownership on the ground.
How the exam asks about it
The distinction candidates lose marks on is ownership, not appearance. In a PUD the buyer owns the lot and the structure in fee, and the common areas are owned by the association; in a condominium the buyer owns the airspace of a unit and an undivided share of the common elements directly. The PUD is also the standard example of zoning applied to a plan instead of to a parcel — which is why it is approved as an exception to the district and governed afterwards by recorded restrictions rather than by the zoning map.
A use right earned by open, continuous, unpermitted use over the statutory period
Also writteneasement by prescription.
A prescriptive easement — written in course materials as an easement by prescription, the same thing under a longer name — is acquired rather than granted. Someone who uses a strip of a neighbor’s land openly, continuously and without permission for the period the state sets may acquire a legal right to keep doing it. It is the easement cousin of adverse possession, and it produces a right of use rather than ownership.
How the exam asks about it
The distinguishing detail against adverse possession: prescription gives a right to use, adverse possession gives title. Permission from the owner defeats both, which is why owners grant revocable licenses to head this off.
A private promise limiting how land may be used, recorded against the title
Put in place by a developer or an earlier owner rather than by government, and enforced by the neighbors or the association it benefits. Because it runs with the land it binds buyers who never agreed to it and never met the person who imposed it.
Covenants that discriminate against a protected class are void and unenforceable, and the text of them still appears in old recorded documents.
Easily confused with
Zoning is a public power exercised by government and enforced by a municipality. A covenant is private, and the remedy is an injunction brought by whoever it benefits.
How the exam asks about it
When a covenant and a zoning ordinance both apply, the stricter of the two governs. That is the item, almost every time.
Rezoning a single parcel inconsistently with the area around it
The objection is not the change but the singling out: one lot given a classification that serves its owner rather than any plan. Courts strike it down when it cannot be tied back to the comprehensive plan and to a public purpose.
How the exam asks about it
Recognize it from the shape of the fact pattern — one parcel, different treatment, no planning rationale — and know that it is generally held invalid.
Permission to depart from a zoning requirement because of hardship
Granted in advance by a board of adjustment where strict application of the ordinance would impose an unnecessary hardship peculiar to the parcel — an unusually shaped lot that cannot meet a setback, for instance.
How the exam asks about it
The hardship must be about the land, not the owner’s finances or preferences. A variance is permission going forward; it is not the same as being grandfathered.
Local regulation dividing land into districts with permitted uses
A zoning ordinance says what may be built where and at what scale — use, height, density, setbacks. It is the everyday face of police power, and it is local: two adjoining municipalities can regulate the same street quite differently.
How the exam asks about it
Know the three escape hatches and do not mix them: a variance for hardship, a conditional use permit for a listed use needing review, and legal non-conforming status for a use that predates the rule.
Independent exam preparation. Real Estate Exam Bank is not a state-approved pre-licensing course and completing anything here does not satisfy any state education requirement. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or authorized by any state real estate commission, Pearson VUE, or PSI. Practice questions here are original study material, not the official exam.