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Property
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Jesse Dukeminier's trademark wit, passion, and human interest perspective has made Property, now in its Ninth Edition, one of the best--and best loved--casebooks of all time. A unique blend of authority and good humor, you'll find a rich visual design, compelling cases, and timely coverage of contemporary issues. In the Ninth Edition, the authors have created a thoughtful and thorough revision, true to the spirit of the classic Property text.
Key Benefits:
A new chapter on the Intellectual Property/Property relationship, that gives students a taste of patent law, copyright law, trademark law, and trade secrets law. The chapter highlights the differences and similarities among the legal treatment of real, chattel, and intellectual property. A dynamic, two-color designed casebook that encompasses cases, text, questions, problems, examples and numerous photographs and diagrams. Extended coverage of major recent Supreme Court decisions, including Murr v. Wisconsin, Horne v. Department of Agriculture, and Marvin M. Brandt Revocable Trust v. United States.
Jesse Dukeminier's trademark wit, passion, and human interest perspective has made Property, now in its Ninth Edition, one of the best--and best loved--casebooks of all time. A unique blend of authority and good humor, you'll find a rich visual design, compelling cases, and timely coverage of contemporary issues. In the Ninth Edition, the authors have created a thoughtful and thorough revision, true to the spirit of the classic Property text.
Key Benefits:
A new chapter on the Intellectual Property/Property relationship, that gives students a taste of patent law, copyright law, trademark law, and trade secrets law. The chapter highlights the differences and similarities among the legal treatment of real, chattel, and intellectual property. A dynamic, two-color designed casebook that encompasses cases, text, questions, problems, examples and numerous photographs and diagrams. Extended coverage of major recent Supreme Court decisions, including Murr v. Wisconsin, Horne v. Department of Agriculture, and Marvin M. Brandt Revocable Trust v. United States.
1269 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1988
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113 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews
November 21, 2024
Oh property, you will not be missed
November 21, 2024
Thought I would feel so smart after finishing this. I do not! :)
May 12, 2024
3/5 for property textbook. It was nice that it was short. But did you really have to choose Marenholtz and Fulkerson? I’m just saying there have to be better cases than those to demonstrate those topics……… anyways, it was interesting enough
December 12, 2022
This book is the perfect example of what bothered me about law school.
For background, we didn't memorize the laws of any particular state which would have been practical- that we would have to do at the last minute in preparation for our bar exam. Instead, we were supposedly learning about the philosophy of law, and to a certain extent, we did. For example, the rule against perpetuities is so mind-bending it may as well be philosophy or physics. We also investigated such things as why states with abundant water supplies might view access to water sources differently than states with drought conditions.
But of what use was this philosophizing? Considering that some alum will become lawmakers or employed in related fields we really failed to consider the broader picture. This land we were all arguing over, how had we obtained a right to it in the first place? How did the ethics of that acquisition affect or not affect the subsequent laws with regards to property? Had we substantially improved the application of our laws or justice since we stole all this land from Native Americans? What are we to make of the years when the vote was specifically tied to property-ownership when women were unable to inherit property? How do we justify current day racial and class disparities in which communities we allow pollution, coal runoff, and oil pipes? What about The Federal Housing Authority (FHA) refusing to guarantee mortgages for blacks who tried to buy in white neighborhoods, while The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) maintained segregated camps? What can policy or law do to remedy the unfair playing field?
For background, we didn't memorize the laws of any particular state which would have been practical- that we would have to do at the last minute in preparation for our bar exam. Instead, we were supposedly learning about the philosophy of law, and to a certain extent, we did. For example, the rule against perpetuities is so mind-bending it may as well be philosophy or physics. We also investigated such things as why states with abundant water supplies might view access to water sources differently than states with drought conditions.
But of what use was this philosophizing? Considering that some alum will become lawmakers or employed in related fields we really failed to consider the broader picture. This land we were all arguing over, how had we obtained a right to it in the first place? How did the ethics of that acquisition affect or not affect the subsequent laws with regards to property? Had we substantially improved the application of our laws or justice since we stole all this land from Native Americans? What are we to make of the years when the vote was specifically tied to property-ownership when women were unable to inherit property? How do we justify current day racial and class disparities in which communities we allow pollution, coal runoff, and oil pipes? What about The Federal Housing Authority (FHA) refusing to guarantee mortgages for blacks who tried to buy in white neighborhoods, while The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) maintained segregated camps? What can policy or law do to remedy the unfair playing field?
May 6, 2008
"Will the future interest vest, or fail to vest, within the Perpetuities period? Or will it vest remotely? Must the interest be struck from the conveyance?"
If such questions trouble your conscience, this book is for you.
If such questions trouble your conscience, this book is for you.
Read
December 1, 2025basically i know how to adverse possess now
June 30, 2025
Casebook was similar to Torts; loved the little updates about how cases progressed (parties had so much tea!)
Read
February 5, 2015Everything you need to know about property law written by the Duke! Dukeminier was the leading authority on property law that even when he died the 3 other authors continued to make newer editions with his name on top.
Caution: The stars are relative to other law textbooks, especially compared to another property textbooks out there. Unless you are studying law or have this weird interest in property law, I do not recommend.
Caution: The stars are relative to other law textbooks, especially compared to another property textbooks out there. Unless you are studying law or have this weird interest in property law, I do not recommend.
October 22, 2009
Very comprehensive and thrilling. The chapters on adverse possession make this a nonstop instant classic that I just can't put down. Dukeminier then just blindsides the reader with a wall of emotion when the discussion moves to nuisance.
August 7, 2016
standard first year common law property text. cool bits are the historical summations of feudal property forms. text is screwy insofar as it presents selections of Melville, Locke, and so on. rule against perpetuities FTW.
February 17, 2024
Made me question my life decisions but no complaints besides that
May 19, 2010
My God this book sucks. The selection of cases is questionable in that every one we read glorifies the tenant over the landlord and the little guy over the big bad company, the notes are atrocious at illuminating the big ideas and trends, and the damn thing drips with blatant liberal propaganda. This is a PROPERTY book for crying out loud, not labor law or discrimination law or some other BS touchy feely area. Surely the book should not only mention but focus on how property rights are crucial to a functioning society. Surely property can be the one place where we focus on economic efficiency and fundamental rights and set aside annoying, irrelevant notions of income inequality. Surely?
Nope. The four named editors are professors at UCLA, Michigan, Cornell, and UCLA, again. Oh, and they're law professors. Is there any doubt as to there political persuasion? No, there's not. They're goddamn hippies.
I can only stomach two examples of the absurd lib comments and filler aside from the cases.
Example number one. On pages 83-85, the authors present dialogue between two archetypes, "Pro" and "Con." Pro supports allowing people to sell organs for money, in other words, legalizing an organ market. Con opposes the idea. The dialogue is actually very good. It is informative, concise, and presents the major arguments on both sides of the issue. Unfortunately, the authors just could not contain their own ideology for a full three pages, that would be asking way too much. Bear in mind that Pro is the free-market, laissez-faire, individual autonomy guy. He believes people have the right to own their own bodies and their property and do with them what they want. He does not want governmental interference because he recognizes the harm such interference causes and realizes that the path to wealth comes about through mutual, voluntary exchange of competent adults. He realizes that permitting everyone to engage in as many activities and select as many choices as possible leads to the best outcome for the most people, including especially the poor. Pro is the embodiment of freedom and he is in the process of kicking Con's ass in the debate.
Then, the authors give him this doozy of a line: "Ideally, we should redistribute wealth to the poor, period, and let them choose from there. But this isn't an ideal world." !!!!! WTF??!!! This line just dropped mid paragraph from the FREE-MARKET guy. I freaking lost it when I read that. It's just so absurd for so many reasons. It has absolutely no place in Pro's argument. The larger point he was making is that poor people need more choices, which is entirely true and completely unrelated to notions of redistributing wealth. And why have the libertarian make such a completely contradictory statement that goes against the thrust of the rest of his argument? Oh yes, they most assuredly wrote Con to agree with the sentiment that redistribution is good. Why not just leave it at that? The two disagree on everything, but, for some reason, the authors felt compelled to make them agree on this one, tangential notion, thus forcing Pro to contradict everything else he had argued up to that point. It would be like writing a liberal who completely supported welfare, job training, housing subsidies, unemployment compensation, workers' compensation insurance, the whole works, but he, for some reason, was just obviously against food stamps, period. It would be like Mr. Scrooge or Mr. Burns giving away his winning lottery ticket. It's so completely out of character that the only response is, WTF?
And my favorite part of all is the "period." "Ideally, we should redistribute wealth to the poor, period." Hahahaha, I mean how absurd!!! He just baldly declares the conclusion to the very thing over which they should be arguing. No facts. No justifications. No arguments at all. Just a declaration to avoid all those things: "we should redistribute wealth to the poor, period." As if adding the word "period" substitutes for critical reasoning. I should really start using that. It's amazing that one word can just, presto, make an otherwise weak argument seem strong.
How about we SHOULD NOT redistribute wealth to anyone because wealth is not distributed, it is earned, period. It is not redistributed it is confiscated, stolen, taken, thieved, wrenched from the hands and against the will of those who worked for it and given to those who did not, period. It was honestly one of the most absurd lines I've ever read, period. I can barely believe that it comes from academics--intellectuals who are supposed to be critical of all reasoning and skeptical of all ideas. Except I can believe it. Our institutions are infested with people who mindlessly spout such drivel.
Example number two. Pages 447-49 contain ridiculous treatment of rent control, the implied warranty of habitability, and the Chicago ordinance from Chicago Board of Realtors, Inc. v. City of Chicago. In the opinion for that case, Judge Posner offers the economic rationale for opposing rent control and other regulations on landlords such as those in the Chicago ordinance. Posner says, "The market for rental housing behaves as economic theory predicts: if price is artificially depressed, or the costs of landlords artificially increased, supply falls and many tenants, usually the poorer and the newer tenants, are hurt...The single proposition in economics from which there is the least dissent among American economists is that 'a ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available.'" Period.
Rent controls do not achieve the goal of actually making housing available at "affordable" prices, whatever that means. The reason is because there will be less housing supplied. Libs always think they can tweak one thing, such as capping rent, without any alternative or unforeseen consequences. It's like believing the company you worked for wanted to control costs and it could just lower your wages or cap your wages and you'd keep right on working just as hard. No. People respond and react to incentives. You would look for another job or work less hard. Similarly, landlords look for other ways to make up lost revenue. They provide a worse product or fewer products.
The casebook authors take this incontrovertible fact about human nature and try to pretend like there is some epic debate still waging over the issue. I will give you their argument as faithfully and succinctly as possible before tearing it apart. They say, "Unhappily for the student, though, the vast literature bearing on the debate [over rent control:]--a literature that we merely sample here--is unlikely to lead a disinterested observer to firm conclusions one way or the other. Posner and Easterbrook pretty much capture the case against rent controls. Virtually all economists, as they point out right at the end of their analysis, regard them as counterproductive. Virtually all AMERICAN economists, that is. Fewer than 2 percent of them dissented from the proposition stated by Posner and Easterbrook. But almost 44 percent of French economists did, along with 20 percent of Swiss economists and 11 percent of Austrian economists, down to 6 percent of German economists." The authors go on to say that one study by "economists, political scientists, planners, and sociologists" found that rent controls did not bring down prices to affordable levels but also did not provide evidence for deleterious effects of rent controls. Finally, the authors fall back on "whether economists have overlooked important nonutilitarian considerations that might 'trump' the conventional analysis." After all, "Rent controls 'make it possible for existing tenants to stay where they are, with roughly the same proportion of their income going to rent as they have become used to.'" They say, "From a moral point of view, then, judgments about rent controls must turn very much on context."
Problems with the above argument:
1. Uh, no. It's just wrong. The disinterested observer will be persuaded by the overwhelming empirical and theoretical support for the conclusion that rent controls are a bad idea.
2. Let's present the exact same information in a different way and see how it looks. 98% of American economists, 56% of French economists, 80% of Swiss economists, 89% of Austrian economists, and 94% of German economists recognize that rent controls fail to achieve their stated goals of providing affordable housing and actually harm those most in need of help. That's pretty overwhelming. Maybe we should ignore the small minority of economists who are incorrect about this particular issue. It's also worth noting how people use consensus or majority opinion when it agrees with them and disregard it when it doesn't. If the small minority of economists who like rent control are worthy of our consideration, what about the minority of scientists who don't believe in man-made global warming? What about the minority of creationists? Intelligent designers? 9/11 conspiracy theorists? Of course the authors would immediately point out how the fact they are in a small minority indicates they are wrong and not worth heeding.
3. When they can't get the economists to agree with them, they call in people from other fields to help balance the scales. Here, they add political scientists, planners, and sociologists--codewords all for damn hippies. Please. Rental prices is an economic question. A sociologist's opinion about the injustice of wealth disparities or historical oppression and response has no bearing on numerical price questions. That's like asking various professionals their opinion on a math question. There is a right answer, regardless of what profession one follows. This reminds me of the IPCC creating a "consensus" of scientists on climate change and including podiatrists and optometrists as climate "experts." Additionally, let's level with one another. Planners and sociologists and political scientists derive their power from politics and trying to force people to behave how they tell them. Forgive me for being skeptical of "planners" whose very salary is drawn from sticking their nose in other people's business and using the threat of force to demand compliance with their whims. Without forced compliance, planners would not exist. So would they support laws that give them more tools to play with and more power? No, not them, they are purely selfless and interested only in helping others. Please.
4. Ah, yes, the old fall back to noneconomic values. When the original justification for rent control fails, supporters fall back on "nonutilitarian" considerations. Which is simply a way to weasel out of responsibility for failed policy. The argument is that other things besides economics should factor in. There is a moral component, you see. Even this final stronghold does not hold at all because the position is morally bankrupt. There is nothing moral about stealing someone's property or about forcing increasing numbers of poor people to go without housing, both of which rent control does. Those lucky enough to already have housing benefit from artificially low prices, but those benefits are more than offset by the losses incurred by landlords and the poor, would-be tenants who never get the chance to rent the apartment at a higher price even if they are willing to pay it. It is theft. It is a simple, involuntary transfer of wealth from some people to others in an inefficient manner. All of society must bear the costs of that inefficiency. The authors are right, there is a moral component and there are noneconomic considerations. They just assign blame and praise to exactly the wrong parties. Supporters of rent control are the criminals, the perpetrators, the thieves of undeserved property. Landlords and tenants willing to pay higher rent are the victims.
To sum up, the authors blow it on a critically important subject by allowing their partisanship to shine through in inappropriate places and permeate the entire text. They also focus on the wrong topics, emphasizing needless points of view using bad logic while not giving nearly enough airtime to the truth.
Nope. The four named editors are professors at UCLA, Michigan, Cornell, and UCLA, again. Oh, and they're law professors. Is there any doubt as to there political persuasion? No, there's not. They're goddamn hippies.
I can only stomach two examples of the absurd lib comments and filler aside from the cases.
Example number one. On pages 83-85, the authors present dialogue between two archetypes, "Pro" and "Con." Pro supports allowing people to sell organs for money, in other words, legalizing an organ market. Con opposes the idea. The dialogue is actually very good. It is informative, concise, and presents the major arguments on both sides of the issue. Unfortunately, the authors just could not contain their own ideology for a full three pages, that would be asking way too much. Bear in mind that Pro is the free-market, laissez-faire, individual autonomy guy. He believes people have the right to own their own bodies and their property and do with them what they want. He does not want governmental interference because he recognizes the harm such interference causes and realizes that the path to wealth comes about through mutual, voluntary exchange of competent adults. He realizes that permitting everyone to engage in as many activities and select as many choices as possible leads to the best outcome for the most people, including especially the poor. Pro is the embodiment of freedom and he is in the process of kicking Con's ass in the debate.
Then, the authors give him this doozy of a line: "Ideally, we should redistribute wealth to the poor, period, and let them choose from there. But this isn't an ideal world." !!!!! WTF??!!! This line just dropped mid paragraph from the FREE-MARKET guy. I freaking lost it when I read that. It's just so absurd for so many reasons. It has absolutely no place in Pro's argument. The larger point he was making is that poor people need more choices, which is entirely true and completely unrelated to notions of redistributing wealth. And why have the libertarian make such a completely contradictory statement that goes against the thrust of the rest of his argument? Oh yes, they most assuredly wrote Con to agree with the sentiment that redistribution is good. Why not just leave it at that? The two disagree on everything, but, for some reason, the authors felt compelled to make them agree on this one, tangential notion, thus forcing Pro to contradict everything else he had argued up to that point. It would be like writing a liberal who completely supported welfare, job training, housing subsidies, unemployment compensation, workers' compensation insurance, the whole works, but he, for some reason, was just obviously against food stamps, period. It would be like Mr. Scrooge or Mr. Burns giving away his winning lottery ticket. It's so completely out of character that the only response is, WTF?
And my favorite part of all is the "period." "Ideally, we should redistribute wealth to the poor, period." Hahahaha, I mean how absurd!!! He just baldly declares the conclusion to the very thing over which they should be arguing. No facts. No justifications. No arguments at all. Just a declaration to avoid all those things: "we should redistribute wealth to the poor, period." As if adding the word "period" substitutes for critical reasoning. I should really start using that. It's amazing that one word can just, presto, make an otherwise weak argument seem strong.
How about we SHOULD NOT redistribute wealth to anyone because wealth is not distributed, it is earned, period. It is not redistributed it is confiscated, stolen, taken, thieved, wrenched from the hands and against the will of those who worked for it and given to those who did not, period. It was honestly one of the most absurd lines I've ever read, period. I can barely believe that it comes from academics--intellectuals who are supposed to be critical of all reasoning and skeptical of all ideas. Except I can believe it. Our institutions are infested with people who mindlessly spout such drivel.
Example number two. Pages 447-49 contain ridiculous treatment of rent control, the implied warranty of habitability, and the Chicago ordinance from Chicago Board of Realtors, Inc. v. City of Chicago. In the opinion for that case, Judge Posner offers the economic rationale for opposing rent control and other regulations on landlords such as those in the Chicago ordinance. Posner says, "The market for rental housing behaves as economic theory predicts: if price is artificially depressed, or the costs of landlords artificially increased, supply falls and many tenants, usually the poorer and the newer tenants, are hurt...The single proposition in economics from which there is the least dissent among American economists is that 'a ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available.'" Period.
Rent controls do not achieve the goal of actually making housing available at "affordable" prices, whatever that means. The reason is because there will be less housing supplied. Libs always think they can tweak one thing, such as capping rent, without any alternative or unforeseen consequences. It's like believing the company you worked for wanted to control costs and it could just lower your wages or cap your wages and you'd keep right on working just as hard. No. People respond and react to incentives. You would look for another job or work less hard. Similarly, landlords look for other ways to make up lost revenue. They provide a worse product or fewer products.
The casebook authors take this incontrovertible fact about human nature and try to pretend like there is some epic debate still waging over the issue. I will give you their argument as faithfully and succinctly as possible before tearing it apart. They say, "Unhappily for the student, though, the vast literature bearing on the debate [over rent control:]--a literature that we merely sample here--is unlikely to lead a disinterested observer to firm conclusions one way or the other. Posner and Easterbrook pretty much capture the case against rent controls. Virtually all economists, as they point out right at the end of their analysis, regard them as counterproductive. Virtually all AMERICAN economists, that is. Fewer than 2 percent of them dissented from the proposition stated by Posner and Easterbrook. But almost 44 percent of French economists did, along with 20 percent of Swiss economists and 11 percent of Austrian economists, down to 6 percent of German economists." The authors go on to say that one study by "economists, political scientists, planners, and sociologists" found that rent controls did not bring down prices to affordable levels but also did not provide evidence for deleterious effects of rent controls. Finally, the authors fall back on "whether economists have overlooked important nonutilitarian considerations that might 'trump' the conventional analysis." After all, "Rent controls 'make it possible for existing tenants to stay where they are, with roughly the same proportion of their income going to rent as they have become used to.'" They say, "From a moral point of view, then, judgments about rent controls must turn very much on context."
Problems with the above argument:
1. Uh, no. It's just wrong. The disinterested observer will be persuaded by the overwhelming empirical and theoretical support for the conclusion that rent controls are a bad idea.
2. Let's present the exact same information in a different way and see how it looks. 98% of American economists, 56% of French economists, 80% of Swiss economists, 89% of Austrian economists, and 94% of German economists recognize that rent controls fail to achieve their stated goals of providing affordable housing and actually harm those most in need of help. That's pretty overwhelming. Maybe we should ignore the small minority of economists who are incorrect about this particular issue. It's also worth noting how people use consensus or majority opinion when it agrees with them and disregard it when it doesn't. If the small minority of economists who like rent control are worthy of our consideration, what about the minority of scientists who don't believe in man-made global warming? What about the minority of creationists? Intelligent designers? 9/11 conspiracy theorists? Of course the authors would immediately point out how the fact they are in a small minority indicates they are wrong and not worth heeding.
3. When they can't get the economists to agree with them, they call in people from other fields to help balance the scales. Here, they add political scientists, planners, and sociologists--codewords all for damn hippies. Please. Rental prices is an economic question. A sociologist's opinion about the injustice of wealth disparities or historical oppression and response has no bearing on numerical price questions. That's like asking various professionals their opinion on a math question. There is a right answer, regardless of what profession one follows. This reminds me of the IPCC creating a "consensus" of scientists on climate change and including podiatrists and optometrists as climate "experts." Additionally, let's level with one another. Planners and sociologists and political scientists derive their power from politics and trying to force people to behave how they tell them. Forgive me for being skeptical of "planners" whose very salary is drawn from sticking their nose in other people's business and using the threat of force to demand compliance with their whims. Without forced compliance, planners would not exist. So would they support laws that give them more tools to play with and more power? No, not them, they are purely selfless and interested only in helping others. Please.
4. Ah, yes, the old fall back to noneconomic values. When the original justification for rent control fails, supporters fall back on "nonutilitarian" considerations. Which is simply a way to weasel out of responsibility for failed policy. The argument is that other things besides economics should factor in. There is a moral component, you see. Even this final stronghold does not hold at all because the position is morally bankrupt. There is nothing moral about stealing someone's property or about forcing increasing numbers of poor people to go without housing, both of which rent control does. Those lucky enough to already have housing benefit from artificially low prices, but those benefits are more than offset by the losses incurred by landlords and the poor, would-be tenants who never get the chance to rent the apartment at a higher price even if they are willing to pay it. It is theft. It is a simple, involuntary transfer of wealth from some people to others in an inefficient manner. All of society must bear the costs of that inefficiency. The authors are right, there is a moral component and there are noneconomic considerations. They just assign blame and praise to exactly the wrong parties. Supporters of rent control are the criminals, the perpetrators, the thieves of undeserved property. Landlords and tenants willing to pay higher rent are the victims.
To sum up, the authors blow it on a critically important subject by allowing their partisanship to shine through in inappropriate places and permeate the entire text. They also focus on the wrong topics, emphasizing needless points of view using bad logic while not giving nearly enough airtime to the truth.
January 1, 2023
This author was a UCLA professor that got his JD from Yale and his undergrad from Harvard. I've had plenty of professors at ivy league schools in my time including one in property law. This is the first one I feel is genuinely an unintelligent person. If he weren't then he would have noticed how bad this book was.
His opinions are purported like he is an expert in history, economics, science, and philosophy. He isn't. The treatments of these subjects are biased, fail to consider all the factors, and lack the formal techniques of experts in such fields. And sadly that's all this book seems to be about!
If you want to read a book written by an old super privileged person that misses the main point of its subject and instead divulges extensively on things that that person is NOT an expert in go for it.
His opinions are purported like he is an expert in history, economics, science, and philosophy. He isn't. The treatments of these subjects are biased, fail to consider all the factors, and lack the formal techniques of experts in such fields. And sadly that's all this book seems to be about!
If you want to read a book written by an old super privileged person that misses the main point of its subject and instead divulges extensively on things that that person is NOT an expert in go for it.
May 2, 2018
This casebook was so unnecessarily long (expensive), barely even tried to dumb down material or explain concepts and define terms, and just honestly did not vibe with me. Hopefully it'll vibe with other law students. I learned so much more from the E & E and Quimbee and reading the case text itself than I ever did reading the supposed helpful explanations in this casebook. Good riddance.
November 30, 2021
Oh to gosh back in time when Pierson v. Post was the most complicated property law I had to know.
May 1, 2022
Overall its a Law Case book. They teach certain topics and interweave case law into the book. I thought the case law was good in explaining the over all concepts the professor was trying to teach.
November 21, 2023
Hated the class so I couldn’t say I enjoyed the book.
December 19, 2023
As boring as a book can be. Get it for your property class if you must. You will need supplementary materials to understand the concepts.
April 2, 2025
If you survived Property, you know
April 16, 2025
Oh property law, why are you the way that you are. Interesting bundle sticks. this was the wrong edition for my class lol
April 17, 2025
I don't know how you'd make a book on Property Law less boring, I really don't, but this one was a snooze fest.
April 28, 2025
I really appreciated the pictures and the postscripts
April 30, 2025
F*** the rule of perpetuities, but 🫶 easements and covenants
December 22, 2025
I spent months reading this and it’s getting me to my reading goal so shhh🤫
May 18, 2025
i think this has been my favorite law school textbook so far. so many of my textbooks so far have been overly complicated & dense & can seem intimidating & inaccessible. a lot of times, it feels like authors of law textbooks try to show how smart they are without realizing that students, especially 1Ls, don't know the material yet and actually have to start from the beginning in order to recognize their intelligence. i think that this book was a lot better at explanations, particularly in the sense that the authors didn't use overly complex, academic language & instead tried to simplify & convey the material. the cases were actually interesting (loved gruen v. gruen) & did a good job of explaining & demonstrating the related concepts. there wasn't a single case where i had to question why it was included in the book or why i was reading it for the class or a particular topic. i actually found the writing style engaging & that allowed me to not dread doing my readings for property this semester like i did for my other classes (cough cough...crim). i also really liked the updates & background stories that were included for some of the cases - it was a nice break after reading for hours & always made me smile. more like this one PLEASE
January 21, 2013
This is a general beef that I have about casebooks, i.e. they rarely provide answers to their questions. I may be too accusatory, but one wonders if the authors just don't know the answers. Other than that, I decided not to give the casebook 5 stars because it was not well organized. The authors should have made it clearer when they were giving background information, as opposed to excerpts of cases, because a reader like moi found it all the text jumbled together like a black sesame soup.
March 29, 2007
Ever wonder about the origins of our materialistic Anglo-American tradition? Look no further. This casebook has all the ins and outs of basic property law. From chattels to fee simple subject to condition subsequent, you've got everything you need right here. And, its the only case book I have encountered with marvelous pictures.
April 27, 2016
This was actually a pretty great casebook. Property is not my forte, but this casebook has a lot of relevant cases and it's very easy to actually read through it consistently, rather than having to skip around like a lot of other casebooks. The practice problems were excellent, and there was a lot of helpful (and/or at least interesting) background info given.
August 21, 2007
Property was always one of those classes that I both loved and hated in law school. I thought a lot of the concepts were interesting, but I cannot imagine anyone finding some of those concepts, like fee simple with remaineder to x as interesting. All in all, a great casebook.
October 9, 2013
This was one of the less accesable casebooks I've read so far. I recently acquired some casenotes and that has helped a lot since the cases are not edited very much and have a lot of superfluous writing.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews