 Here we have a beautiful piece of land that we will call Black Acre. Why do we call it Black Acre? I don't really know, but I just know that in law school we always call it a fictitious piece of land Black Acre. It was never White Acre, Pink Acre, or Purple Acre, just Black Acre. So Black Acre is considered to be a piece of real property. Real property includes most notably the land, but it also includes anything that is attached to the land, which most notably includes buildings and also other things such as fences. Real property also includes a certain amount of airspace above and a certain amount of ground below, but only to the extent that is necessary for the ordinary use and enjoyment of the land and the structures on it. So it does not include all of the air up to space, but only the amount that you ordinarily would need to enjoy your property. So the practical implication of that is that you can't stop an airplane from flying over your house because that air that's flying through does not belong to you, it's not a part of the real property that you own. And also, because you don't own all of the ground below, the stuff that's really deep down below, minerals like gold or diamonds or even oil or gas, none of that is included in real property. So if there is valuable things like that beneath property that you own, you don't own it, it's not yours. So who owns Blackacre? The fact that most people don't realize it is that it is the crown that is the ultimate absolute owner of all real property in Canada. The crown refers to the federal and provincial governments. Everyone else outside of governments can only own certain exclusive rights to possess a real property. Those rights are referred to as estates, and there are a number of different kinds of estates. So if we have Claire here, she has entered into a deal to buy Blackacre from the previous owner. Let's say she found the property for sale on a listing site like MLS.ca. She made an offer, the offer was accepted, and she says that she now owns Blackacre. What does she exactly own? She owns what we call a fee simple estate. A fee simple estate is the right to exclusive possession during the owner's life and the right to dispose of the property on death. So as long as Claire is alive, she has the right to possess and use Blackacre. And when she dies, she has a right to determine who should then get ownership of Blackacre through her will. A fee simple estate is the highest form of property ownership that you can have if you're not a government. It allows you to use the property in almost any way you want. You can sell it, you can lease it, you can give it away, you can modify it. Now how you use and modify it is subject to various land use regulations which include environmental protection laws. Let's say, for example, there is a stream or a river that runs through your property. There are environmental laws that will prevent you from dumping toxic waste into that river. And also, other land use regulations are found in municipal zoning and planning regulations. So those are regulations set by municipalities dealing with, for example, whether or not you can run a business. From a certain property or is it a purely residential property? Or how big a house can you build? How tall a house can you build? All kinds of rules like that that deal with how you can build and use your property. Now with a fee simple estate, we have to remember that the ultimate owner is still the crown. Because of that, the government, either provincial or federal government has a right to take a property to use for public purposes. And that's called expropriation. So they might need the property to build a new highway or a new airport. Now when the government decides to expropriate a piece of property, the owner of the property, so Claire in this case, would have no choice but to sell or give up the property to the government. The government, however, has an obligation to pay fair compensation for the expropriated property. Here's Claire again. She's the owner of Blackacre. Or more specifically, she's the owner of the fee simple estate in Blackacre. And here is her spouse, Igor. Claire has decided that when she dies, she wants Blackacre to go to Igor for the rest of his life. And once Igor is gone, once he's died, she wants Blackacre to go to their son. So she's put all of that into her will. What Claire has created for Igor is a life estate. A life estate is defined as a right to exclusive possession during the life of a particular person. In this case, it's the life of Igor, but no right to dispose of property on the death of that person. So that life estate does not give Igor any right to sell the property either during his life or even once he's dead. It cannot go to whoever he wants in his will. It has to go to their son after Igor has died. So with a life estate, on the death of the particular person, the property may go to either the owner of the fee simple estate. That would be called a reversion. The property is reverting back to the original owner of the fee simple estate. Or the property can go to a third person specified by the fee simple estate owner. And that's called a remainder. In our example here with Claire and Igor, does the son get a reversion or a remainder? The answer is that the son has get or gets a remainder or what's called a remainder interest. The son is a third person specified by the owner of the fee simple who is Claire. So again Claire is the sole owner of the fee simple estate in Blackacre. She has now decided to lease Blackacre to Igor and that lease would run for a year. What Claire has created is a leasehold estate. A leasehold estate is a right to exclusive possession during a specified period. So the leasehold estate that Igor would have is the right to have possession of Blackacre for a period of one year. A leasehold estate is created by a lease contract that is entered into between the lessor, which is the owner of the fee simple estate and the lessor. In this case is Claire and the lessor is Igor. Let's now say Claire and Igor want to own Blackacre together. How would we go about setting that up? There are two different ways of doing shared ownership. The first method is called joint ownership or joint tenancy. And the second way of doing it is co-ownership or tenancy in common. With joint ownership each person would own an equal share of the property. So Claire and Igor would each have an undivided 50% share of the property. With joint tenancy or joint ownership, there is something called a right of survivorship. So on the death of one joint owner, so let's say Igor dies, that person's share, the deceased person's share passes automatically to the remaining joint owner. So in our case here with Igor's death, Claire would automatically become the sole owner of Blackacre. With the co-ownership, so Igor is back in the picture now, each owner may own a different percentage of the property. So in our example here, we can have Claire owning two thirds and Igor owning the remaining one third. With a co-ownership or tenancy in common, there is no right of survivorship. So on the death of one of the co-owners, so Igor again is gone, that person's share is distributed according to that person's will. So if Igor's will says that he wants his one third share to go to his brother, the result would be that Claire would still own her two thirds of Blackacre and Igor's brother would own the other third. So Blackacre has been bought by a developer. The developer has decided to tear down Blackacre, or the house that's on Blackacre, and has rebuilt a brand new condo tower. Claire has decided to buy one of the condo units in the new Blackacre building. So when you buy a condo, what exactly do you own? What exactly does Claire own by owning the condo unit? She has an individual right to possess the space occupied by the unit that she's purchased, a specific unit in the building. So that air that's occupied by that unit, she has an exclusive right to use. So that's also called a flying fee, or instead of being called a fee symbol estate. So literally she owns a piece of air. What she also owns is co-ownership in the common areas. So the common areas of the condo are areas that can be used by all of the unit owners. So that includes the lobby area, the pool, the rec room, the elevators. So any common area, she has a co-ownership interest in those common areas. Any condominium building needs a condominium corporation. A condo corporation is a non-profit organization that manages the building. The condo corporation is run by a board of directors. So those board of directors are elected by the unit owners. The board of directors sets and enforces regulations that govern the use of the building. So that can include rules like whether or not you can have pets in the building, where you can park your bike, what are the hours for the pool to be open. All of those rules and regulations are dealt with by the condo corporation. And the corporation is funded by condo fees that are paid by the unit owners.