Possesory Interests – Freehold and Non-Freehold Estates

Fee Sim­ple Defea­si­ble Estates

Sev­eral free­hold estates are known col­lec­tively by the term fee sim­ple defea­si­ble or sim­ply as defea­si­ble fees. Each of these, like a life estate, is less than a fee sim­ple. Unlike a life estate, they can be con­veyed by will or other tes­ta­men­tary instru­ment; but, as long as the estate lasts, it is sub­ject to a con­di­tional restric­tion that makes it worth less than a life estate. If the con­di­tion spec­i­fied in the deed or will that cre­ates the defea­si­ble fee takes place, then the fee inter­est may be set aside.
Fee Sim­ple Determinable

A fee sim­ple deter­minable vested a present pos­ses­sory inter­est in a grantee with a rever­sion­ary inter­est in the grantor. Depend­ing on the con­di­tion included in the grant, the rever­sion­ary inter­est might (or might not) be exer­cised. The lan­guage used phrases, such as “so long as” or “while” the grantee com­plied with the con­di­tion. If the grantee failed to com­ply with the con­di­tion, the estate auto­mat­i­cally ter­mi­nated and reverted to the grantor.
The Mar­ketable Title Act had a sig­nif­i­cant impact on defea­si­ble estates. It abol­ished the fee sim­ple deter­minable estate, the pos­si­bil­ity of reverter, and the right of entry fol­low­ing a fee sim­ple on con­di­tion sub­se­quent. Any estate that would have been cre­ated with any com­bi­na­tion of those inter­ests is now a fee sim­ple sub­ject to con­di­tion sub­se­quent cou­pled with a power of ter­mi­na­tion. [C.C. §885.020].

The Mar­ketable Title Act also requires that own­ers of some of these future inter­ests, includ­ing pow­ers of ter­mi­na­tion, record a notice of their intent to pre­serve their inter­est. Fail­ure to record the notice within a given period of time (typ­i­cally 30 years from the cre­ation of the inter­est, or 5 years after the adop­tion of the Act if the 30 years had already expired) nor­mally ter­mi­nates the interest.

Iron­i­cally, in the Wal­ton v. City of Red Bluff case, the court acknowl­edged that the plain­tiff, Wal­ton, had indeed waited too long after the Act was passed to record a notice of his inten­tion to enforce his ancestor’s pos­si­bil­ity of reverter. Nev­er­the­less, it ruled in his favor (find­ing, among other things, that the City held only a fee sim­ple deter­minable) merely because the City failed to raise the Act as a defense dur­ing the trial court pro­ceed­ings! Had the City been aware of and raised the Act as a defense early in the case, it is doubt­ful that Wal­ton would have won.

Fee Sim­ple Sub­ject to Con­di­tion Subsequent

Since 1983, a fee sim­ple sub­ject to con­di­tion sub­se­quent is any fee estate con­tain­ing a con­di­tion that if vio­lated, could lead to the ter­mi­na­tion of the estate and give the grantor a right of entry. Lan­guage in a fee sim­ple sub­ject to con­di­tion sub­se­quent will describe some con­di­tion and, if that con­di­tion occurs, the grantor can exer­cise a right of entry. These con­di­tions typ­i­cally have words like “until,” “unless,” “but if” in the con­di­tion, so that its occur­rence is more clearly a spe­cific event that trig­gers the right of entry. Before 1983, the future inter­est was some­times called a right of reentry

Life Estates

A life estate is a present pos­ses­sory inter­est that gives the grantee a pos­ses­sory inter­est for the length of a mea­sur­ing life. The mea­sur­ing life is usu­ally the grantee’s life—but it does not have to be. It can even be cre­ated on the life of a des­ig­nated per­son who has no inter­est in the prop­erty as the mea­sur­ing life—known as pur autre vie.

The per­son to whom a life estate is con­veyed is known as the life ten­ant. Since a life estate is a type of free­hold, or fee estate, the life ten­ant has all the rights that go with fee own­er­ship except dis­pos­ing of the estate by will. Remem­ber, the life estate is tied to a des­ig­nated life and when that party dies, the estate goes to either the per­son in rever­sion or the per­son in remain­der or their heirs.

Life ten­ants must pay the taxes and main­tain the prop­erty. They may col­lect all rents and keep all prof­its for the dura­tion of the life estate. They may encum­ber the prop­erty or dis­pose of it in any way except by will. Any inter­est the life ten­ants may cre­ate in the property—extending beyond the life of the per­son used to mea­sure the estate—will become invalid when that des­ig­nated per­son dies.

Estate in Remainder

Instead of keep­ing a rever­sion­ary inter­est, the grantor can instead iden­tify some­one to receive the prop­erty when the life ten­ant dies. That inter­est is known as a remain­der and the per­son iden­ti­fied in the instru­ment cre­at­ing the inter­est is known as the remain­der­man. A remain­der is a future inter­est that takes effect upon the expi­ra­tion of a life estate when the life ten­ant dies.

Non­free­hold Estates

A non­free­hold estate is also known as a lease­hold, which is a tenant’s pos­ses­sory estate in land or premises. As with free­hold estates, both the law and much of the ter­mi­nol­ogy for such prop­erty rela­tion­ships are still rooted in medieval con­cepts today. The most obvi­ous exam­ple is a per­son who owns land and rents it to some­one else is com­monly referred to as a land­lord or as a landlady—two terms that expressly con­jure up images of feu­dal­ism and alle­giance to vas­sals. The mod­ern term for this per­son (male or female) is lessor. The holder of a lease­hold estate was his­tor­i­cally known as a ten­ant. The mod­ern term for the per­son who rents land and pays for that use is a lessee.

Whether referred to as a ten­ant or a lessee, the per­son who hires land usu­ally pays some form of mon­e­tary con­sid­er­a­tion, com­monly known as rent. Although rent is usu­ally money, rent can take the form of some kind of non-monetary com­pen­sa­tion, such as the ten­ant mak­ing repairs in exchange for the right to live on the prop­erty. Although the rela­tion­ship between the lessor and lessee is a lease­hold, it is com­monly referred to as a ten­ancy. Dur­ing any lease­hold, the lessor has a rever­sion­ary inter­est because at the end of the lessee’s term, the prop­erty reverts to the lessor.

There are four basic ten­an­cies rec­og­nized by the law today. They dif­fer in how they are ini­ti­ated, how they are ter­mi­nated, and in the rela­tion­ship between the lessor and lessee dur­ing the term of each ten­ancy.
Four Types of Lease­hold Interests

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Peri­odic ten­ancy
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Ten­ancy for years
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Ten­ancy at suf­fer­ance
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Ten­ancy at will

Peri­odic Tenancy

A peri­odic ten­ancy (estate from period-to-period) refers to a lease­hold inter­est that is for an indef­i­nite period of time. The dura­tion of the estate is deter­mined by the term or fre­quency of rent pay­ment. The most com­mon ver­sion of a peri­odic ten­ancy is the month-to-month ten­ancy. Cal­i­for­nia law pre­sumes that rent­ing real prop­erty, unless the par­ties have agreed oth­er­wise, is for a period of 30 days. [C.C. §1944].

Finan­cial Encumbrances

Hav­ing dis­cussed ease­ments, which affect the use of prop­erty, we direct our atten­tion to finan­cial encum­brances, which affect the title to prop­erty. The finan­cial encum­brances that cre­ate a legal oblig­a­tion to pay are known as liens. A lien is an inter­est in real prop­erty owned by some­one else that secures the pay­ment of a debt or finan­cial oblig­a­tion. A lien uses real prop­erty as secu­rity for the pay­ment of a debt.

Liens may be spe­cific or gen­eral. A spe­cific lien is one that is placed against a cer­tain prop­erty, such as a mechanic’s lien, deed of trust, and prop­erty tax lien. A gen­eral lien affects all prop­erty of the owner, such as a judg­ment lien or fed­eral or state income tax liens. Addi­tion­ally, liens are clas­si­fied as vol­un­tary or invol­un­tary.
Vol­un­tary Liens

An owner may choose to bor­row money, using the prop­erty as secu­rity for the loan, cre­at­ing a vol­un­tary lien. A vol­un­tary lien does not have to be recorded, but if it is not recorded, then other par­ties (such as pur­chasers and lenders) may not be bound by it.

Invol­un­tary Liens

Other kinds of liens are involuntary—they are used to col­lect money from debtors who have real prop­erty among their assets. If an owner fails to pay taxes, assess­ments, or other debts, a lien may be placed against his or her prop­erty with­out per­mis­sion, cre­at­ing an invol­un­tary lien. Typ­i­cal invol­un­tary liens include judg­ment liens, tax liens, and mechanic’s liens.
Judg­ment Liens

A judg­ment lien is a lien acquired by a judg­ment cred­i­tor, usu­ally the plain­tiff, against the judg­ment debtor. The judg­ment cred­i­tor is the per­son pre­vail­ing in a law­suit who was awarded money dam­ages. The judg­ment debtor is the per­son against whom dam­ages were awarded.

Abstract of Judg­ment. Once a court judg­ment for money dam­ages becomes final, the judg­ment cred­i­tor can obtain an abstract of judg­ment from the court that awarded the dam­ages. The abstract of judg­ment is a one-page doc­u­ment that con­tains infor­ma­tion about the court judg­ment. It can be recorded with each county recorder where the judg­ment debtor owns real prop­erty. Once recorded, the abstract of judg­ment cre­ates a gen­eral lien—that applies to all parcels of real prop­erty owned by the judg­ment debtor in that county. [C.C.P. §687.310]. The county recorder will send the judg­ment debtor a notice of this invol­un­tary lien. In fact, the judg­ment cred­i­tor may record the abstract of judg­ment in coun­ties where the judg­ment debtor owns no property.

Invol­un­tary Liens

Other kinds of liens are involuntary—they are used to col­lect money from debtors who have real prop­erty among their assets. If an owner fails to pay taxes, assess­ments, or other debts, a lien may be placed against his or her prop­erty with­out per­mis­sion, cre­at­ing an invol­un­tary lien. Typ­i­cal invol­un­tary liens include judg­ment liens, tax liens, and mechanic’s liens.
Judg­ment Liens

A judg­ment lien is a lien acquired by a judg­ment cred­i­tor, usu­ally the plain­tiff, against the judg­ment debtor. The judg­ment cred­i­tor is the per­son pre­vail­ing in a law­suit who was awarded money dam­ages. The judg­ment debtor is the per­son against whom dam­ages were awarded.

Abstract of Judg­ment. Once a court judg­ment for money dam­ages becomes final, the judg­ment cred­i­tor can obtain an abstract of judg­ment from the court that awarded the dam­ages. The abstract of judg­ment is a one-page doc­u­ment that con­tains infor­ma­tion about the court judg­ment. It can be recorded with each county recorder where the judg­ment debtor owns real prop­erty. Once recorded, the abstract of judg­ment cre­ates a gen­eral lien—that applies to all parcels of real prop­erty owned by the judg­ment debtor in that county. [C.C.P. §687.310]. The county recorder will send the judg­ment debtor a notice of this invol­un­tary lien. In fact, the judg­ment cred­i­tor may record the abstract of judg­ment in coun­ties where the judg­ment debtor owns no property.

Lis Pen­dens

If title to real prop­erty is dis­puted in a law­suit, either party can record a lis pen­dens to put third par­ties on notice that there is a law­suit pend­ing. The term lis pen­dens means, “Law­suit pend­ing,” and does not give either party any fore­clo­sure rights. Instead, it is a “buy­ers beware” notice to prospec­tive lenders or buy­ers that title to the prop­erty is dis­puted. It also does not actu­ally pre­vent any­one from buy­ing the prop­erty, but it warns par­ties that they could be involved in a law­suit if they do. Pub­lic enti­ties can also file a spe­cial kind of lis pen­dens when they file law­suits seek­ing to cor­rect a code vio­la­tion on a par­tic­u­lar prop­erty.
Tax Liens

A tax lien is an invol­un­tary, finan­cial encum­brance placed upon prop­erty as a claim for pay­ment of a tax lia­bil­ity. Tax liens are levied by local, state, and fed­eral gov­ern­ment agen­cies. Tax liens can attach to any prop­erty owned by the tax­payer or acquired after the lien is placed. They con­tinue until the tax lia­bil­ity is sat­is­fied or becomes unenforceable.

Although tax liens may be imposed for fail­ure to pay city, county, estate, income, pay­roll, prop­erty, sales, or school taxes, the most com­mon tax lien is for delin­quent prop­erty taxes and spe­cial assess­ments. Prop­erty taxes and spe­cial assess­ments are spe­cific liens, whereas other gov­ern­ment taxes, such as unpaid income taxes, are gen­eral liens. This means that if the prop­erty owner fails to pay a spe­cific tax lien, it only affects the par­cel of land sub­ject to the tax or spe­cial assess­ment; the tax or assess­ment can­not be col­lected from any other prop­erty owned by the taxpayer.

Non-Financial Encum­brances

A non-financial encum­brance is one that affects the phys­i­cal use or con­di­tion of the prop­erty, such as ease­ments, profit-à-prendres, and restric­tions.
Easements

An ease­ment is an inter­est owned by one per­son in the land of another per­son. An ease­ment allows its owner to use or, in some cases, to pre­vent the use of the land bur­dened by the ease­ment. Ease­ment rights are often cre­ated for the ben­e­fit of the owner of adjoin­ing land. Ease­ments are cre­ated for the ben­e­fit of at least one party at the expense of the prop­erty owner. The land ben­e­fit­ing from the cre­ation of the ease­ment is the dom­i­nant ten­e­ment; the land that is sub­ject to the ease­ment is the servient ten­e­ment. [CC §803]. Unless the ease­ment is specif­i­cally described to be “exclu­sive,” its cre­ation does not pre­vent the owner of the land from using the land and the por­tion cov­ered by the ease­ment in a way that does not inter­fere with the use of the ease­ment. Unless agreed oth­er­wise, the owner of the dom­i­nant ten­e­ment has the respon­si­bil­ity to main­tain a right-of-way easement.

Ele­ments Required to Cre­ate a Pre­scrip­tive Easement

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Open use (i.e., some asser­tion of con­trol, such as cross­ing the other land);
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Noto­ri­ous use (i.e., use that a rea­son­able per­son would rec­og­nize);
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Hos­tile use (i.e., with­out the other owner’s per­mis­sion);
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Adverse to a claim of right (i.e., adverse to the other prop­erty owner’s title); and
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Con­tin­u­ous use for a five-year time period.

If the use is done with the other owner’s per­mis­sion, then it is not adverse or hos­tile and does not ripen into a pre­scrip­tive easement.

The law allows pre­scrip­tive rights because if the landowner sub­jected to what amounts to a tres­pass does noth­ing to enforce those prop­erty rights, the per­son mak­ing the pre­scrip­tive use will even­tu­ally come to rely on that use. It is also based on the notion that if some­one is using some­one else’s land pro­duc­tively, even with­out per­mis­sion, land is too valu­able to allow some­one to restrict that use if the owner has failed to object to the use for a cer­tain period of time.

A pre­scrip­tive ease­ment is merely an inter­est in a cer­tain property—not own­er­ship. Although the method used for acquir­ing prop­erty rights through pre­scrip­tion is sim­i­lar to adverse pos­ses­sion, adverse pos­ses­sion requires the pay­ment of taxes for five con­tin­u­ous years, while pre­scrip­tion does not. Also, remem­ber one acquires title to prop­erty through adverse pos­ses­sion, but only a spec­i­fied inter­est in prop­erty through prescription.

Ter­mi­na­tion by Implication

The actions of the prop­erty own­ers, rather than an express agree­ment, can ter­mi­nate an easement.

Merger. An ease­ment is an inter­est in the prop­erty of another per­son. There­fore, an ease­ment is ter­mi­nated when one per­son obtains fee own­er­ship of both the ben­e­fited prop­erty (dom­i­nant ten­e­ment) and bur­dened prop­erty (servient tenement).

Destruc­tion of the servient ten­e­ment. If the ease­ment is for the use of a struc­ture, such as a build­ing or bridge and the struc­ture is destroyed, the ease­ment ter­mi­nates. Rebuild­ing the struc­ture does not auto­mat­i­cally cre­ate a new easement.

Neces­sity for or pur­pose of the ease­ment ends. An ease­ment cre­ated for a spe­cific pur­pose or need ends when the pur­pose ends.

Exam­ple: Par­cel B is land­locked and an ease­ment by neces­sity is cre­ated over Par­cel A for ingress and egress. Four years later, the county extends a road that gives access to Par­cel B so that it is no longer land­locked. There­fore, the ease­ment cre­ated by neces­sity is no longer relevant.

Most likely, the owner of the servient ten­e­ment would bring an action to quiet title against the owner of the dom­i­nant ten­e­ment in order to ter­mi­nate the ease­ment. A law­suit to estab­lish or set­tle title to real prop­erty is called a quiet title action or an action to quiet title.

Kinds of Restric­tions often Imposed by CC&Rs

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Every owner in the sub­di­vi­sion to pay annual dues that sup­port insur­ance and main­te­nance of the com­mon areas
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List of approved exte­rior col­ors for houses within the sub­di­vi­sion
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Pro­hi­bi­tion against out­door anten­nas or satel­lite dishes
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Main­te­nance stan­dards for out­door land­scap­ing
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Pro­hibit­ing the park­ing of motor homes on the subdivision’s streets or dri­ve­ways or restrict­ing how long (e.g., 72 hours) such vehi­cles can be parked
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Garage doors not be left open for lengthy peri­ods of time
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Pro­hibit­ing auto repairs on the subdivision’s streets or dri­ve­ways
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Requir­ing that back­yards be sur­rounded by a six-foot solid fence

Home­steads

Cal­i­for­nia and many other states have home­stead laws to pro­tect fam­i­lies. There are two home­stead statutes in Cal­i­for­nia: Arti­cles 4 and 5 of Chap­ter 4, Divi­sion 2, Title 9, and Part 2 of the Cal­i­for­nia Code of Civil Pro­ce­dure (Sec­tions 704.710–704.995). Home­stead prop­erty is the home (pri­mary res­i­dence) occu­pied by a fam­ily that is exempt from the claims of, or evic­tion by, unse­cured creditors.

A home­stead exemp­tion is in effect a lien that pro­tects a cer­tain amount of equity in a person’s home by lim­it­ing the amount of lia­bil­ity for cer­tain debts against which a home can be used to sat­isfy a judg­ment. The amount pro­tected varies depend­ing on the age, mar­i­tal sta­tus, and income of the prop­erty owner. A home­stead exemp­tion does not stop the sale of the prop­erty. Its pur­pose is to ensure that the home­owner receives the amount of the exemp­tion before the cred­i­tors are paid from the sale proceeds.

Home­stead prop­erty can be sold if the sale pro­ceeds are suf­fi­cient to:

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pay all exist­ing liens on the prop­erty.
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pay off all mort­gages and loans secured by the equity in the home.
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pay the costs of sell­ing the home.
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allow the home­owner to keep equity in the amount pro­tected by the home­stead exemption.

Because they are sub­ject to the gen­eral rule regard­ing liens that “first in time is first in right,” home­stead exemp­tions are not effec­tive against prior liens, such as a pur­chase money deed of trust or mort­gage. They are also not effec­tive against tax liens, mechanic’s liens, or judg­ment liens for child, fam­ily, or spousal support.

Sum­mary

Inter­ests in real prop­erty can be either pos­ses­sory or non­pos­ses­sory. Those that are pos­ses­sory are usu­ally present inter­ests mean­ing that they can be exer­cised today. Non­pos­ses­sory inter­ests are those that can­not be exer­cised today, but nor­mally can be exer­cised in the future. There­fore, they usu­ally are known as future interests.

Another term for an own­er­ship inter­est is a free­hold estate. The largest free­hold estate that one can own in Cal­i­for­nia is the fee sim­ple absolute, which includes all the rights to sell, exclude oth­ers, finance, and do any other thing with real prop­erty that the law allows. Other free­hold estates include the fee sim­ple sub­ject to con­di­tion sub­se­quent and the life estate.

Non­free­hold estates are known as lease­holds. A lease­hold con­sists of an inter­est held by the ten­ant (or lessee) to reside on the prop­erty or to use it and a rever­sion­ary inter­est held by the prop­erty owner or lessor.

Non-possessory inter­ests include finan­cial encum­brances, such as liens and non-financial encum­brances, such as ease­ments, profit-à-prendre, and restric­tions. A lien is a finan­cial inter­est in the prop­erty of another. Ease­ments may be either appur­tenant or in gross.

A prop­erty owner can pro­tect his or her prop­erty against judg­ment liens by record­ing a dec­la­ra­tion of home­stead before the judg­ment lien takes effect.

1 Mar­tin pur­chased a par­cel of land on which he intends to build a house. Which of the bun­dle of rights per­tains to this activ­ity? hint The right of use is a right that gives an owner of prop­erty the abil­ity to con­trol the use of the prop­erty within the bound­aries of the law. For exam­ple, the right of use allows a per­son to add an addi­tion to a house. Points: 1

Right of pos­ses­sion
Right of use
Right of trans­fer
Right to encum­ber
2 Which of the fol­low­ing is not included in the def­i­n­i­tion of real prop­erty? hint Real prop­erty includes the land, any­thing per­ma­nently attached to the land, any­thing appur­tenant to the land, or any­thing immov­able by law. Points: 1

Any­thing mov­able by law
Any­thing immov­able by law
Any­thing appur­tenant to the land
Any­thing per­ma­nently attached to the land
3 What are emble­ments? hint Emble­ments are annual crops cul­ti­vated by ten­ant farm­ers. They are the per­sonal prop­erty of the ten­ant farmer even prior to har­vest. Points: 0

Any­thing that enhances the appear­ance of some­thing with­out hav­ing any func­tional pur­pose
Per­sonal prop­erty of a ten­ant farmer, even prior to har­vest
Per­sonal prop­erty of a ten­ant farmer, but only after har­vest
Real prop­erty owned by a ten­ant farmer
4 Which is not one of the tests used to deter­mine whether prop­erty is a fix­ture or per­sonal prop­erty? hint If there is a dis­pute, the five tests used to deter­mine if prop­erty is con­sid­ered a fix­ture or per­sonal prop­erty are method of attach­ment, adap­ta­tion, rela­tion­ship of the par­ties, intent of the par­ties, and agree­ment of the par­ties. Points: 1

Adap­ta­tion of the prop­erty
Intent of the par­ties for the par­tic­u­lar prop­erty
Property’s method of attach­ment
Time of the attach­ment
5 Trade fix­tures used in a trade or busi­ness are: hint Trade fix­tures are fix­tures that are attached to real estate by a ten­ant, usu­ally for the pur­pose of con­duct­ing a trade or busi­ness from a com­mer­cial prop­erty. Trade fix­tures are con­sid­ered per­sonal prop­erty. Courts nor­mally rule that tenant-owned trade fix­tures do not become the prop­erty of the land­lord, even when attached to the real estate. How­ever, the ten­ant must remove the trade fix­tures, prior to the end of the lease with­out sig­nif­i­cant dam­age to the build­ing. Points: 0

per­sonal prop­erty of the ten­ant.
real prop­erty of the land­lord.
emble­ments of the ten­ant.
fruc­tus indus­tri­ales.
6 Accord­ing to Cal­i­for­nia pol­icy, what is the high­est use of water? hint Cal­i­for­nia pol­icy is that the use of water for domes­tic pur­poses is the high­est use of water and that the next high­est use is for irri­ga­tion. Other ben­e­fi­cial uses include fire pro­tec­tion, min­ing, water­ing stock, sprin­kling to pro­tect crops from heat or frost dam­age, recre­ation, indus­trial, wildlife pro­tec­tion, and power gen­er­a­tion. Points: 1

Domes­tic pur­poses
Fire pro­tec­tion
Irri­ga­tion
Recre­ation
7 The rights to nat­ural resources, such as min­er­als, oil, and gas are part of the: hint Sub­sur­face rights are the rights to the nat­ural resources, such as min­er­als, oil, and gas below the sur­face. Points: 0

air rights.
bun­dle of rights.
sub­sur­face rights.
sur­face rights.
8 What is the mea­sure­ment of a tract of land with its bound­aries, con­tents, and loca­tion rel­a­tive to other prop­erty? hint A sur­vey is the pro­fes­sional mea­sure­ment of a tract of land with its bound­aries, con­tents, and loca­tion rel­a­tive to other prop­erty. Points: 1

Cal­cu­lus
Sur­vey
Land spec­u­la­tion
Rela­tion­ship analy­sis
9 Land­marks and mon­u­ments are used to indi­cate a bound­ary of a par­cel of land. Which of the fol­low­ing is a land­mark? hint A land­mark is a geo­graphic fea­ture, such as a large rock, an old tree, a fork in a creek, or the inter­sec­tion of two roads. Points: 1

Large oak tree grow­ing out of an out­crop of rock
Wooden stake
Iron post in the ground
Any man-made object
10 The fol­low­ing legal descrip­tion was found in a deed: “Lot 17, Block 5, Cit­rus Acres, County of Orange, State of Cal­i­for­nia.” This is an exam­ple of a(n) __________ descrip­tion. hint A recorded plat descrip­tion uses lot and block. Points: 1

metes and bounds
rec­tan­gu­lar sur­vey
recorded plat
infor­mal reference