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Created by eriknchrisj
about 9 years ago
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Question | Answer |
Abandonment: | Abandonment: The voluntary surrender or relinquishment of possession of property with the intention of terminating one’s possession or in but without the vesting of this interest in any other person, such as when a moves and abandons leas |
Abstract of Title: | Abstract of Title: The condensed history of a title to a particular parcel of real estate, consisting of a summary of the original grant and all subsequent conveyances and encumbrances affecting the property and a certification by the abstr |
Abstract of title with lawyer’s opinion: | Abstract of title with lawyer’s opinion: An abstract of title that a lawyer has e and has certified to be, in his or her opinion, accurate statement of fact. |
Acceleration clause: | Acceleration clause: The clause in a mortgage or trust deed or note that can be enforced to make the entire amount of principal and interest due immediately if the mortgagor defaults on an installment payment or other covenant. |
Accession: | Accession: Acquiring title to additions or improvements to real property as a result of the annexation of fixtures or the accretion of alluvial banks of streams. |
Accretion: | Accretion: The increase or addition of land by the deposit of sand or soil washed up naturally from a river, lake or sea. |
Accrued Items: | Accrued Items: On a closing statement, items of expenses that are incurred but not yet payable, such as interest on a mortgage loan or taxes on real property. |
Acknowledgment: | Acknowledgment: A formal declaration made before a duly-authorized officer, usually a notary public, by a person who has signed a document attesting that the instrument was executed by him and that it was his free and voluntary act. |
Acre: | Acre: A measure of land equal to 43,560 square feet, 4,840 square yards, 4,047 square meters, 160 square rods or 0.4047 hectare. |
Actual Eviction: | Actual Eviction: The result of legal action, originated by a lessor, whereby a defaulted tenant is physically ousted from the rented property pursuant to a court order. See also eviction. |
Actual Notice: | Actual Notice: Express information or fact; that which is known; direct knowledge. |
Adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM): | Adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM): A mortgage loan in which the interest rate may increase or decrease at specified intervals over the life of the loan. |
Adjusted basis: | Adjusted basis: See basis. |
Adjusted sales price: | Adjusted sales price: For income tax purposes, the actual sales price reduced by allowable sales expenses. |
Administrator/administratrix: | Administrator/administratrix: A man/woman appointed by a court to settle the estate of a decreased person when there is no will; contrast with executor/executrix. |
Ad valorem tax: | Ad valorem tax: A tax levied according to value; generally used to refer to real estate tax; also called the general tax. |
Adverse possession: | Adverse possession: The actual, visible, hostile, notorious, exclusive and continuous possession of another’s land under a claim of title. Possession for a statutory period may be a means of acquiring title. |
Affidavit of title: | Affidavit of title: A written statement, made under oath by a seller or grantor of real property and acknowledged by a notary public, in which the grantor (1) identifies himself or herself and indicates marital status, (2) certifies that si |
Agency by ratification: | Agency by ratification: An agency relationship fact. |
Agency coupled with an interest: | Agency coupled with an interest: An agency relationship in which the agent has an estate or interest in the subject of the agency (the property). |
Agent: | Agent: One who acts or has the power to act for another. A fiduciary relationship is created under the law of agency when a property owner, as the principal, executes a listing agreement or management contract authorizing a licensed real es |
Air Lot: | Air Lot: A designated airspace over a piece of land. An air lot, like surface property, may be transferred. |
Air rights: | Air rights: The right to use the open space above a property, generally allowing the surface to be used for another purpose. |
Alienation: | Alienation: The act of transferring property to another. Alienation may be voluntary, such as by gift or sale, or involuntary, as through eminent possession. |
Alienation clause: | Alienation clause: The clause in a mortgage or deed of trust that states that the balance of the secured debt becomes immediately due and payable at the mortgagee’s option if the property is sold by the mortgagor. In effect this clause prev |
Allodial System: | Allodial System: A system of land ownership in which land is held free and clear of any rent or service due to the government; commonly contrasted to the feudal system. In the United States, land is held under the allodial system. |
Alluvion: | Alluvion: Soil that has been added to the land by accretion. |
Amortization: | Amortization: Repayment of a loan in which a portion of the principal as well as the interest due is payable in monthly or other periodic installments over the term of the loan. |
Amount realized on sale: | Amount realized on sale: The amount of gain, or profit, subject to income tax. |
Antitrust laws: | Antitrust laws: Laws designed to preserve the free enterprise of the open marketplace by making illegal, certain private conspiracies and formed to minimize competition. Violations antitrust laws in the real estate generally involve pric |
Appointed Licensee: | Appointed Licensee: A licensee associated with and appointed by an intermediary broker to communicate with, carry out instructions of, and provide opinions and advice to the parties to whom the licensee is appointed. |
Appraisal: | Appraisal: An estimate of the quantity, quality or value of something. The process through which conclusions of property values are obtained: also refers to the report that sets forth the process of estimation and conclusion of value. |
Appraisal Review Board: | Appraisal Review Board: A group of people who hears appeals concerning assessed valuations for tax purposes and recommends or denies changes in values shown of record. |
Appraised value: | Appraised value: An estimate of the present worth of a property. |
Appreciation: | Appreciation: An increase in the worth or value of a property due to economic or related causes, which may prove to be either temporary or permanent; opposite of depreciation. |
Appurtenances: | Appurtenances: Those rights, privileges and improvements that belong to and pass with the transfer of real property but are not necessarily a part of the property, such as rights-of-way, easements, water rights and property improvements. |
Area: | Area: The size of a two-dimensional figure such as a triangle or rectangle. |
ARELLO: | ARELLO: The National Association of Real Estate License Law Officials. |
Assemblage: | Assemblage: The combining of two or more adjoining lots into one larger tract to increase their total value. |
Assessed Value: | Assessed Value: The value set upon property for taxation purposes. |
Assessment: | Assessment: The imposition of a tax, charge or levy, usually according to established rates. |
Assessment roll: | Assessment roll: The public record of the assessed values of all lands and buildings within a specific area. |
Assumption of Mortgage: | Assumption of Mortgage: Acquiring title to property on which there is an existing mortgage and agreeing to be personally liable for the terms and conditions of the mortgage, including payments; contrast with subject to mortgage. |
Attorney’s opinion of title: | Attorney’s opinion of title: A writing based on the lawyer’s reading of an abstract of title that specifies any title defects and names the legal titleholder as the lawyer interprets it; states whether a seller may convey a good title. |
Automatic extension: | Automatic extension: A clause in a listing agreement that states that the agreement will continue automatically for a certain period of time after its expiration date; illegal in Texas. |
Avulsion: | Avulsion: The sudden tearing away of land, as by earthquake, flood volcanic action or the sudden change in the course of a stream. |
Balloon payment: | Balloon payment: A final payment of a mortgage loan that is considerably larger than the required periodic payments because the loan amount was not fully amortized. |
Bargain and Sale Deed: | Bargain and Sale Deed: A deed that carries with it no warranties against liens or other encumbrances, but that does imply that the grantor has the right to convey title. The grantor may add warranties to the deed at his or her discretion. |
Base line: | Base line: One of a set of imaginary lines running east and west and crossing a principal meridian at a definite point, used by surveyors for reference in locating and describing land under the rectangular survey (or government survey) syst |
Basis: | Basis: The financial interest that the Internal Revenue Service attributes to an owner of an investment property for th purpose of determining annual depreciation and gain or loss on the sale of the asset. If a property was acquired by purc |
Benchmark: | Benchmark: A permanent reference mark or point established for use by surveyors in measuring differences in elevation. |
Beneficiary: | Beneficiary: (1) The person for whom a trust operates or on whose behalf the income from a trust estate is drawn. (2) A lender who lends money on real estate and takes back a note and trust deed from the borrower. |
Bequest: | Bequest: The transfer of personal property to a legatee in accordance with a will. |
Bilateral contract: | Bilateral contract: see contract. |
Bill of sale: | Bill of sale: A written instrument given to pass title to personal property. |
Binder: | Binder: An agreement that may accompany an earnest money deposit for the purchase of real property as evidence of the purchaser’s good faith and intent to complete the transaction. |
Blanket mortgage: | Blanket mortgage: A mortgage covering more than one parcel of real estate, providing for each parcel’s partial release from the mortgage lien upon repayment of a definite portion of the debt. |
Blockbusting: | Blockbusting: The illegal practice of inducing homeowners to sell their properties by making representations regarding the entry or prospective entry of minority persons into the neighborhood. |
Blue-sky laws: | Blue-sky laws: Common name for state and federal laws that regulate the registration and sale of investment securities. |
Bond issues: | Bond issues: Interest-bearing certificates issued by a government as a means of financing real estate projects and community improvements. |
Boot: | Boot: Money or property given to make up any difference in value or equity between two properties in an exchange. |
Branch office: | Branch office: A secondary place of business apart from the principal or main office from which real estate business is conducted. A branch office generally is run by a real estate licensee working on behalf of the broker who operates the principal office. |
Breach of contract: | Breach of contract: Violation of any terms or conditions in a contract without legal excuses; for example, failure to make a payment when it is due. |
Broker: | Broker: One who buys and sells for another for a commission. See also real estate broker. |
Brokerage: | Brokerage: For a commission or fee, bringing together parties interested buying, selling, exchanging or leasing real property. |
Broker-salesperson: | Broker-salesperson: A person who has passed the broker’s licensing examination, but works on behalf of another licensed broker. |
Budget Mortgage: | Budget Mortgage: A mortgage in which the monthly house payment includes principal, interest, taxes and insurance (PITI). |
Buffer zone: | Buffer zone: A zoning term meaning a strip of land separating one land use another. |
Building code: | Building code: An ordinance that specifies minimum standards of construction for buildings to protect public safety and health. |
Building line: | Building line: A line fixed at a certain distance from the front and/or sides of a lot beyond which no structure can project. See setback. |
Building permit: | Building permit: Permission issued by a city for the construction of a building to ensure compliance with building codes. |
Bulk transfer: | Bulk transfer: See uniform commercial code. |
Bundle of legal rights: | Bundle of legal rights: The concept of land ownership that means ownership of all legal rights to the land – for example, possession, control within the law and enjoyment – rather than ownership of the land itself. |
Business cycle: | Business cycle: Upward and downward fluctuations in business activity through the stages of expansion, recession, depression and revival. |
Business interruption insurance: | Business interruption insurance: A form of coverage that provides income to a business in the event the premises becomes untenable. |
Buy-down: | Buy-down: A cash payment, usually measured in points, to a lender to reduce the interest rate a borrower must pay. |
Buy-down mortgage: | Buy-down mortgage: A mortgage on which a cash payment has been made to the lender to reduce the interest rate a borrower must pay; usually, “bought down” for the first three years of the loan. |
Buyer agency: | Buyer agency: An agency relationship between the broker and the buyer, with fiduciary duties owed to the buyer. |
Buyer representation agreement: | Buyer representation agreement: A contract which establishes a broker- buyer agency relationship. |
Buyer’s broker: | Buyer’s broker: A licensee who has declared to represent only the buyer in a transaction, regardless of whether compensation is paid by the buyer or the listing broker through a commission split. Some brokers conduct their business by representing buyers only. |
Capital gain: | Capital gain: Income earned from the sale of an asset (formerly a tax-favored sale). |
Capital Investment: | Capital Investment: The initial capital and the long-term expenditures made to establish and maintain a business or investment property. |
Capitalization: | Capitalization: A mathematical process for estimating the value of an income producing property by dividing the annual net operating income by the capitalization rate. |
Capitalization rate: | Capitalization rate: The rate of return a property will produce on the owner’s investment. |
Cash flow: | Cash flow: The net spendable income from an investment, determined by deducting all operating and fixed expenses from the gross income. If expenses exceed income, a negative cash flow is the result. |
Casualty insurance: | Casualty insurance: A type of policy that protects a property owner or other person from loss of injury sustained as a result of theft, vandalism or similar occurrences. |
Caveat emptor: | Caveat emptor: A Latin phrase meaning, “Let the buyer beware.” |
Certificate of sale: | Certificate of sale: The document generally given to a purchaser at a tax foreclosure sale. A certificate of sale does not convey title; generally it is an instrument certifying that the holder received title to the property after the redemption period had passed and that the holder paid the property taxes for that interim period. |
Certificate of title: | Certificate of title: A statement of opinion on the status of the title to a parcel of real property based on an examination of specified public records. |
Chain of title: | Chain of title: The succession of conveyances from some accepted starting point, whereby the present holder of real property derives his or her title. |
Channeling: | Channeling: The illegal practice of directing people to, or away from, certain areas or neighborhoods because of minority status; steering. |
Chattel: | Chattel: Personal property; personalty |
Civil Rights Act of 1866: | Civil Rights Act of 1866: The first and primary law guaranteeing equal rights to all U.S. citizens; prohibits all discrimination based on race. |
Client: | Client: The person who employs an agent to perform a service for a fee. |
Closing agent: | Closing agent: The person responsible for conducting the settlement of a real estate sale. |
Closing Statement: | Closing Statement: A detailed cash accounting of a real estate transaction showing all cash received, all charges and credits made, and all cash paid out in the transaction. |
Cloud on the title: | Cloud on the title: Any document, claim, unreleased lien or encumbrance that may impair the title to real property or make the title doubtful; usually revealed by a title search and removed by either a quitclaim deed or suit to quiet title. |
Clustering: | Clustering: The grouping of homesites within a subdivision on lots that are smaller than normal, with the remaining land used as common areas. |
Code of Ethics | Code of Ethics: An agreement to which all Realtors must subscribe, and which holds the members to high standards of conduct. |
Codicil: | Codicil: A supplement or an addition to a will, executed with the same formalities as a will, that normally does not revoke the entire will. |
Coinsurance clause: | Coinsurance clause: A provision in insurance policies covering real property that requires the policyholder to maintain fire insurance coverage generally equal to at least 80 percent of the property’s actual replacement cost. |
Collateral: | Collateral: Something of value deposited with a lender as a pledge to secure repayment of a loan. |
Commingle: | Commingle: The illegal act of a real estate broker who mixes the money of other people with his or her own money. By law, brokers are required to maintain a separate trust account for other parties’ funds held temporarily by the broker. |
Commission: | Commission: Payment to a broker for services rendered, such as in the sale or purchase of real property; usually a percentage of the selling of the property. |
Common elements: | Common elements: Parts of a property that are necessary or convenient to the existence, maintenance and safety of a condominium, or are normally in common use by all of the condominium residents. Each condominium owner has an undivided ownership interest in the general and limited common elements. |
Common law: | Common law: The body of law based on custom, usage and court decisions. |
Community property: | Community property: A system of property ownership based on the theory that each spouse has an equal interest in the property acquired by the efforts of either spouse during marriage. This system stemmed from Germanic tribes and, through Spain, came to the Spanish colonies of North and South America. The system was unknown under English Common Law. |
Community Reinvestment Act: | Community Reinvestment Act: The federal law that requires federally regulated lenders to describe the geographical market area they serve. Deposits from that area are to be reinvested in that area, whenever practical. |
Comparables: | Comparables: Properties listed in an appraisal report that are substantially equivalent to the subject property and are used to compare and establish a value of the subject property. |
Comparative Market Analysis: | Comparative Market Analysis: (CMA) A range of market values of a property given to prospective buyers or sellers by a real estate licensee, not an actual appraisal. |
Competent parties: | Competent parties: People who are recognized by law as being able to contract with others, usually those of legal age and sound mind. |
Competitive market analysis: | Competitive market analysis: A comparison of the prices of recently sold homes that are similar to the subject home in terms of location, style and amenities. Based on this analysis, a broker or salesperson can help the seller determine a listing price. |
Condemnation: | Condemnation: A judicial or an administrative proceeding to exercise the power of eminent domain, through which a government agency takes private property for public use and compensates the owner. |
Consideration: | Consideration: Something given in exchange for a promise; in real estate, something of value given in exchange for land. |
Contract for deed: | Contract for deed: The owner retains title to the property while the purchaser takes possession of the premises and pays on the principal. When the final payment is made to the seller, the title will transfer to the buyer. This is also known as a land contract or installment land contract. |
Conventional loan: | Conventional loan: A loan made with real estate as security and not involving government participation in the form of insuring (FHA) or guaranteeing (VA) the loan. The mortgagee can be an institutional lender or a private party. The loan is conventional in the sense that it conforms to accepted standards and that the lender looks solely to the credit of the borrower and the security of the property to ensure payment of the debt. |
Cooperative sale: | Cooperative sale: Occurs when a property is listed by one firm and later sold by another. |
Co-ownership: | Co-ownership: A broad category of ownership by more than one person. Examples are tenants in common and joint tenants. |
Corporation: | Corporation: An entity or organization created by operation of law, whose rights of doing business are essentially the same as those of an individual. The entity has continuous existence until it is dissolved according to legal procedures. |
Corporeal right: | Corporeal right: A tangible interest in real estate. |
Correction lines: | Correction lines: Provisions in the rectangular survey (government survey) system made to compensate for the curvature of the earth’s surface. Every fourth township line (at 24-mile intervals) is used as a correction line on which the intervals between the north and south range lines are re-measured and corrected to a full six miles. |
Correspondent Lenders: | Correspondent Lenders: Someone who processes, underwrites, closes and funds their files in their name. Once the loan is closed, the loan is sold to another lender with which the correspondent lender has a business relationship. |
Cost: | Cost: The capital outlay for land, labor, materials and profits necessary to bring a property into existence. |
Cost approach to value: | Cost approach to value: An estimate of value based on current construction costs, less depreciation, plus land value. Contrast with the income approach to value and the sales comparison approach to value. |
Cost recovery: | Cost recovery: An Internal Revenue Service term for depreciation. An accounting deduction for tax purposes by which a business can recover the cost of personal and some real property over a specified time period. This technique replaces depreciation for property placed in service after 1980. It is essentially the same as depreciation, except that costs are recovered without regard to the actual condition or useful life of the property. |
Counseling: | Counseling: The business of providing people with expert advice on a subject based on the counselor’s extensive, expert knowledge of the subject. |
Counteroffer: | Counteroffer: A new offer made as a reply to an offer received. It has the effect of rejecting the original offer, which cannot be accepted thereafter, unless revived by the offeror’s repeating it. |
Covenant: | Covenant: A written agreement between two or more parties in which a pledge is made to perform specified acts with regard to property; usually, found in such real estate documents as deeds, mortgages, leases and contracts for deed. |
Credit: | Credit: On a closing statement, an amount entered in a person’s favor – either an amount the party has paid or an amount for which the party must be reimbursed. |
Curtesy: | Curtesy: A life estate, usually a fractional interest, given by some states to the surviving husband in real estate owned by his deceased wife. Most states, including Texas, have abolished curtesy. |
Customer: | Customer: One who purchases or sells property without being represented by an agent. |
Cycle: | Cycle: A recurring sequence of events that regularly follow one another, generally within a fixed interval of time. |
Datum: | Datum: A horizontal plane from which heights and depths are measured. |
Debit: | Debit: On a closing statement, an amount charged, that is, an amount that the debited party must pay. |
Decedent: | Decedent: A person who has died. |
Deceptive Trade Practices Act (DTPA): | Deceptive Trade Practices Act (DTPA): Part of the Federal Consumer Protection Act, originally passed in 1973 and made specifically applicable to prohibiting a lengthy number of false, misleading or deceptive acts or practices. |
Dedication: | Dedication: The voluntary transfer of private property by its owner to the public for some public use such as for streets or schools. |
Deed: | Deed: A written instrument that, when executed and delivered, conveys title to or an interest in real estate. |
Deed in trust: | Deed in trust: A form of deed by which real estate is conveyed to a trustee, usually to establish a land trust. |
Deed of reconveyance: | Deed of reconveyance: The instrument used to re-convey title to a trustor under a trust deed after the debt has been satisfied. |
Deed of trust: | Deed of trust: An instrument used to create a mortgage lien by which the mortgagor (trustor) conveys his or her title to a trustee, who holds it as sec for the benefit of the lender (beneficiary); also called a trust deed. |
Deed restrictions: | Deed restrictions: Clauses in a deed limiting the future uses of the property. |
Default: | Default: The nonperformance of a duty, whether arising under a contract or otherwise; failure to meet an obligation when due. |
Defeasance clause: | Defeasance clause: A provision in leases and mortgages that cancels a specified right upon the occurrence of a certain condition, such as cancellation of a mortgage upon repayment of the mortgage loan. |
Defeasible fee estate: | Defeasible fee estate: An estate in which the holder has a fee simple title that may be divested upon the occurrence or non occurrence of a specified event. The two categories of defeasible fee estates are fee simple determinable and fee simple subject to a condition subsequent. |
Deficiency judgment: | Deficiency judgment: A personal judgment levied against the mortgagor when a foreclosure sale does not produce sufficient funds to pay the mortgage debt in full. |
Delinquent taxes: | Delinquent taxes: Unpaid taxes that are past due. |
Delivery and acceptance: | Delivery and acceptance: The actual transfer of the deed, or an act of a seller showing intent to make a deed effective, without which, there is no transfer of title to the property. |
Demand: | Demand: The amount of goods people are willing and able to buy at a given price, often coupled with supply. |
Density zoning: | Density zoning: Zoning ordinances that restrict the maximum average number of houses per acre that may be built within a particular area, generally a subdivision. Department of Housing and Urban Development. |
Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD): | Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD): Federal Agency that administers the Fair Housing Act of 1968. |
Depreciated Cost: | Depreciated Cost: The value of a property after deducting an allowance for depreciation. |
Depreciation: | Depreciation: (1) In appraisal, a loss of value in property due to any cause, including physical deterioration, functional obsolescence and external obsolescence. (2) In real estate investment, an expense deduction for tax purposes taken over the period of ownership of income property. See also cost recovery. |
Descent: | Descent: Acquisition of property through inheritance laws when there is no will. |
Determinable fee estate: | Determinable fee estate: A fee simple estate in which the property automatically reverts to the grantor upon the occurrence of a specified event or condition. |
Developer: | Developer: One who converts raw land into a platted subdivision, installs utilities, builds streets and so forth, and who may construct buildings on lots and sell them. |
Devise: | Devise: A gift of real property by will. The donor is the devisor and the recipient is the devisee. |
Discount points: | Discount points: An added loan fee charged by a lender to make the yield on a lower-than-market value loan competitive with higher-interest-rate loans. |
Discount rate: | Discount rate: (1) The interest rate charged member banks that borrow from the Federal Reserve System. (2) The rate used to convert future income into present value. |
Doctrine of relation back: | Doctrine of relation back: Irrevocable deposit of the executed deed, purchase money and instructions into escrow, pending performance of escrow conditions. |
Dominant Tenement: | Dominant Tenement: A property that includes in its ownership the appurtenant right to use an easement over another person’s property for a specific purpose. |
Dower: | Dower: The legal right or interest recognized in some states, that a wife acquires in the property her husband held or acquired during their marriage. During the husband’s lifetime the right is only a possibility of an interest; upon his death it can become an interest in land. Dower is not recognized in Texas. |
Duress: | Duress: Unlawful constraint or action exercised on a person, whereby the person is forced to perform an act against his or her will. A contract entered into under duress is considered voidable. |
Earnest money deposit: | Earnest money deposit: An amount of money, deposited by a prospective buyer as evidence of good faith under the terms of a contract, that is to be forfeited if the buyer defaults, but applied on the purchase price if the sale is closed. |
Easement: | Easement: A right to use the land of another for a specific purpose, such as for a right-of-way or utilities; an incorporeal interest in land. |
Easement appurtenant: | Easement appurtenant: An easement that passes with the land upon conveyance. |
Easement by implication: | Easement by implication: An easement that arises when the parties’ actions imply that they intend to create an easement. |
Easement by necessity: | Easement by necessity: An easement allowed by law as necessary for the full enjoyment of a parcel of real estate; for example, a right of ingress (entry) and egress (exit) over a grantor’s land. |
Easement in gross: | Easement in gross: An easement that is not created for the benefit of any land owned by the owner of the easement, but that attaches personally to the easement owner. For example, a utility easement. |
Economic life: | Economic life: The period of time during which a structure may reasonably be expected to perform the function for which it was designed or intended. For IRS purposes, the time a property is allowed to be depreciated. |
Economic obsolescence: | Economic obsolescence: See external obsolescence. |
Emblements: | Emblements: Growing crops, such as grapes and corn, that are produced annually through labor and industry: deemed to be personal property. |
Eminent domain: | Eminent domain: The right of a government or municipal quasi-public body to acquire property for public use through a court action called condemnation, in which the court decides that the use is a public use and determines the price or compensation to be paid to the owner. |
Employment contract: | Employment contract: A document evidencing formal employment between employer and employee or between principal and agent. In the real estate business, this generally takes the form of a listing agreement or management agreement. |
Enabling acts: | Enabling acts: State legislation that confers certain powers, such as municipal zoning ordinances. |
Encroachment: | Encroachment: A building or some portion of it – a wall or fence, for instance – that extends beyond the land of the owner and illegally intrudes on some land of an adjoining owner or a street or alley. |
Encumbrance: | Encumbrance: Any lien (such as a mortgage, tax or judgment lien or an easement or a restriction on the use of the land) that may diminish the value of a property: a cloud against clear, free title to property. A limit on a property owner’s rights in land. |
Endorsement: | Endorsement: An additional document attached to an original insurance policy that amends the original; a rider. Or, writing one’s name, with or without additional words, on a negotiable instrument. |
Equal Credit Opportunity Act: | Equal Credit Opportunity Act: A federal law to ensure that funds are available to qualified loan applicants without discrimination on the basis of race, religion, sex, national origin, age, martial status or receipt of public assistance. |
Equal opportunity in housing: | Equal opportunity in housing: A federal code that ensures that all U.S. citizens have access to housing without discrimination. |
Equalization: | Equalization: The raising or lowering of assessed value for tax purposes in a particular country or taxing district to make them equal to assessments in other counties or districts. |
Equalization factor: | Equalization factor: A factor (number) by which the assessed value of a property is multiplied to arrive at a value for the property that is in line with statewide tax assessments. The ad valorem tax would be based on this adjusted value. Texas taxes are based on 100 percent value. |
Equitable lien: | Equitable lien: A lien arising out of common law. See statutory lien. |
Equitable right of redemption: | Equitable right of redemption: The right to redeem a property before a foreclosure sale by paying the full debt plus interest and accrued charges. |
Equitable title: | Equitable title: The interest held by a vendee under a contract for deed or an installment contract: the equitable right to obtain absolute ownership to property when legal title is held in another’s name. |
Equity: | Equity: The interest or value that an owner has in his or her property over and above any mortgage indebtedness. |
Erosion: | Erosion: The gradual wearing away of land by water, wind and general weather conditions; the diminishing of property caused by the elements. |
Escheat: | Escheat: The reversion of property to the state or county, as provided by state law, in the event the property is abandoned or the owner dies without leaving a will and has no heirs to whom the property may pass. |
Escrow: | Escrow: The closing of a transaction through a third party called an escrow agent, who receives certain funds and documents to be delivered upon the performance of certain conditions outlined in the escrow agreement. |
Escrow agreement: | Escrow agreement: A contract used when a transaction is closed through escrow that sets forth the duties of the escrow agent, as well as the requirements and obligations of the parties to the transaction. |
Estate at will: | Estate at will: See, tenancy at will. |
Estate for years: | Estate for years: A leased interest in property for a certain, exact period of time and for a specified consideration. |
Estate from period to period: | Estate from period to period: See periodic estate. |
Estate in land: | Estate in land: The degree, quantity, nature and extent of interest that a person has in real property. |
Estate taxes: | Estate taxes: Federal taxes on a decedent’s real and personal property. |
Estimate of value: | Estimate of value: An appraisal; the appraised value. |
Estoppel certificate: | Estoppel certificate: A document in which a borrower certifies the amount he or she owes on a mortgage loan and rate of interest. |
Eviction: | Eviction: A legal process to oust a person from possession of real estate. See forcible entry and detainer. |
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