Property Ownership, Deeds and Legal Descriptions on the Real Estate Exam

How much of the exam is about property

As checked on October 28, 2026, Pearson VUE's national salesperson outline (effective April 1, 2025) opens with two property areas:

That is 20 of 80 scored items. PSI splits the same ground into Property Ownership (10%), Land Use Controls (5%) and Transfer of Title (6%), about 17 of 80 items, and adds measuring structures and land under legal descriptions. The vendor comparison shows how the two line up.

The definitions below come from Cornell's Legal Information Institute and the statutes cited. They describe general principles; property law is mostly state law, and your state may use different rules or names.

Real property, personal property and fixtures

A fixture is something that started as personal property and became part of the real property by being attached to it. Fixtures transfer with the property. When deciding whether an item is a fixture, courts look at how it is attached, how it relates to the property's use, and whether there was an intent to make it a fixture. A trade fixture is different: it is attached by a tenant for business, such as shelving or a machine, and the tenant may take it at the end of the lease.

Pearson VUE also lists the characteristics of land. The economic ones are scarcity, modification or improvement, permanence of investment, and area preference (situs). The physical ones are immobility, indestructibility and uniqueness (non-homogeneity).

Land use controls and encumbrances

The outlines name four government powers:

• Police power, government's broad power to regulate for the public good; zoning, which divides land into zones with different permitted uses, is the outline's example
• Eminent domain, the power to take private property for public use; the Fifth Amendment requires just compensation, usually set by an appraisal of fair market value
• Taxation, including property taxes and special assessments
• Escheat, the passing of property to the state when an owner dies with no will and no heirs

Private controls and encumbrances include deed restrictions, subdivision CC&Rs and association rules, and these interests:

• Easement: a right to use someone else's land without possessing it. An easement appurtenant benefits a dominant tenement and burdens a servient one
• Encroachment: an unauthorized structure, or even plants, extending onto a neighbor's land
• Lien: a creditor's security interest or legal right in property; in practice it usually has to be paid off before the property can be sold free of it, and state law sets the priority among liens
• Adverse possession: a doctrine under which someone in possession of another's land can acquire title after meeting the state's requirements for the period the statute sets

Estates: how long and how fully you own

Pearson VUE also lists gross, net and percentage leases under leasehold estates, and PSI covers leases under its Contracts area.

Co-ownership: who owns, and what happens at death

State statutes decide the details. Washington's law, for example, says a joint tenancy "shall be created only by written instrument" that "expressly" declares it, gives each joint tenant a unilateral right to sever, and treats an interest held by two or more people as an interest in common unless it is declared a joint tenancy. The IRS also notes optional community property elections under Alaska, Tennessee and South Dakota law.

When you're learning which form passes by survivorship and which by will, 63 ownership and title flashcards planned for launch help with the vocabulary behind these tables.

Deeds, title transfer and recording

What a valid deed needs

Pearson VUE lists "elements of a valid deed" as a subtopic, and states define them. Washington's statute is a compact example: every conveyance of real estate "shall be by deed," and every deed "shall be in writing, signed by the party bound thereby, and acknowledged."

Deed types, from most protection to least

Names and covenants vary by state, so learn your state's deed forms for the state portion.

Voluntary and involuntary transfer

Pearson VUE lists voluntary and involuntary alienation. A sale by deed is the familiar voluntary transfer. Title can also pass without the owner's choice, through eminent domain, escheat or adverse possession, all described above, and through foreclosure of a lien.

Recording, notice and title evidence

Recording a deed gives constructive notice: the law treats a person as having notice of a recorded deed whether or not that person actually saw it. The chain of title is the history of ownership transfers, and a title search traces it. Title insurance covers issues the search missed, such as a forged deed.

Recording statutes decide who wins when an owner sells the same property twice. Washington's says an unrecorded conveyance "is void as against any subsequent purchaser or mortgagee in good faith and for a valuable consideration" whose conveyance is recorded first, and that a document "is deemed recorded the minute it is filed for record." Other states word their rules differently, which is why recording also appears on state portions; New Hampshire's state outline, for example, cites its own recording statutes.

For applied practice on ownership, deeds and recording, 70 ownership, transfer and recording questions planned for launch are planned for this area.

Legal descriptions: three methods

PSI's outline names the three methods, and Pearson VUE tests them under legal descriptions:

1. Metes and bounds. Starts at a point of beginning and traces the boundary lines, using natural or artificial monuments, until it closes.
2. Lot and block (recorded plat). Refers to a numbered lot and block on a recorded subdivision plat.
3. Rectangular (government) survey. The Public Land Survey System, used in states surveyed under it.

How the rectangular survey works

The Kansas Geological Survey's explanation gives the standard pattern. Land is surveyed from a principal meridian and a baseline into townships that are generally 6 miles on a side, numbered by township (north or south of the baseline) and range (east or west of the meridian). Each township has 36 sections, each about 1 mile square and containing 640 acres. Section 1 is in the northeast corner, numbering runs back and forth across the township, and section 36 is in the southeast corner. Sections divide into quarters: a quarter section is 160 acres, a quarter of a quarter is 40, and a quarter of a quarter of a quarter is 10. Descriptions are written from the smallest part to the largest.

Worked acreage examples

These are Passy's own examples. Work from right to left, dividing 640 acres by each fraction:

• SW 1/4 of the NE 1/4 of Section 14: 640 ÷ 4 ÷ 4 = 40 acres
• N 1/2 of the SE 1/4: 640 ÷ 4 ÷ 2 = 80 acres
• E 1/2 of the NW 1/4 and the SW 1/4 of the NE 1/4: "and" joins two separate parcels, so add them: 80 + 40 = 120 acres
• Price: a 40-acre parcel at $4,500 per acre costs $180,000

Square footage converts with 43,560 square feet per acre, one of two facts Pearson VUE says you must memorize. The math guide has more area problems.

Two Passy practice items on ownership and surveys

1. Ana and Ben own a cabin as joint tenants with right of survivorship. Ana's will leaves "all my real estate" to her son. Ana dies. Who owns the cabin?

• A. Ben alone, by right of survivorship
• B. Ben and Ana's son as tenants in common
• C. Ana's son alone, under her will
• D. Ben and Ana's son as joint tenants

Answer: A. In a joint tenancy, a deceased owner's interest passes to the surviving joint tenant, not through the will. B is what would happen if they had owned as tenants in common, C ignores Ben's own interest and the survivorship right, and D invents a new joint tenancy no one created.

2. A legal description reads "the S 1/2 of the NW 1/4 of the NE 1/4 of Section 9." How many acres does it describe?

• A. 20 acres
• B. 40 acres
• C. 80 acres
• D. 10 acres

Answer: A. Read from the largest part back: the NE quarter is 640 ÷ 4 = 160 acres, its NW quarter is 40, and the south half of that is 20. B stops one step early, C skips a quarter, and D treats the final half as another quarter.

Next steps for this area

Pair this area with contracts, because many deed and title questions start in a purchase contract: the contracts and agency guide covers that side. The free practice questions include fixture, government survey and joint tenancy items you can try now. When one keeps slipping, Fix It, planned to keep each missed deed question for another try, holds it until you get it right.