Assignment of property rights
Posted on:3/30/2006
| Real property rights can be assigned just as any other contractual right. However, special duties and liabilities attach to transfers of the right to possess property. |
Real property rights can be assigned just as any other contractual right. However, special duties and liabilities attach to transfers of the right to possess property. With an assignment, the assignor transfers the complete remainder of the interest to the assignee. The assignor must not retain any sort of reversionary interest in the right to possess. The assignee's interest must abut the interest of the next person to have the right to possession. If any time or interest is reserved by a tenant assignor, than the act is an not an assignment, but instead is a sublease.
The liability of the assignee depends upon the contract formed when the assignment takes place. However, in general, the assignee has privity of estate with a lessor. With privity of estate comes the duty on the part of the assignee to perform certain obligations under covenant, e.g. pay rent. Similarly, the lessor retains the obligations to perform on covenants to maintain or repair the land.
If the assignor agrees to continue paying rent to the lessor and subsequently defaults, the lessor can sue both the assignor under the original contract signed with the lessor as well as the assignee because by taking possession of the property interest, the assignee has obliged himself to perform duties under covenant such as the payment of rent.
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