My property professor in law school used to throw a little football around the lecture room to help illustrate to us 1L’s what property is. He would say, “‘Property’ is a bundle of rights.” For someone as wet behind the ears as I was at the time, it took awhile for the meaning of this statement to take up permanent residence, but it rents space without vacating the premises. It’s now as permanent a fixture on the walls of my mind as truck stop mens’ bathroom graffiti. The over two decades in practice since those early days with the Rule Against Perpetuities and other property law abominations has helped to integrate that knowledge into a usable daily form. Communication of the concepts in consumable quantities almost demands the use of that model of information organization, nearly ubiquitous in law school and Bar Exam prep, a tool that elicits untold emotions from law students, the outline, although it more resembles a relationship map or flowchart when I visualize it. On a more general note, the decision to foray back into the prickly fields of blogging on this particular subject matter is that the same twenty plus years mentioned beforehand has convinced me that “property” is the single most important and, at the same time, least understood topic in all of estate planning. As Galadriel might say, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” There ain’t no outline of topics, nor any agenda, nor a publication calendar that ties any of us down. New posts will arrive as they do, and I will try to summarize the immediately preceding post in its successor. Feedback is welcome as are questions. Post both in the comment section. Replies will come as time permits. I hope you find the material educational and interesting. Next time, we will open the can with the two main classes or categories of property. Under these two, all other distinctions rise and fall.
