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Types of Property Ownership:

{property} {occupation} {possession} {tenancy} {usufruct} {use} {easements}

Property ownership is the bundle of rights, privileges, and benefits which include rights of possession, occupation, and use, as well as the right to exclude other from the property, the right to sell, lease, mortgage, give away or abandon the property. 

In a Common Law System, these "estates" are often divided into four basic categories:

1. Freehold estates (ownership), such as fee simple
2. Leasehold estates (rights of possession and use, but not ownership)
3. Statutory estates (such as community property, homestead, dower and curtesy, and tenancy by entirety) and
4. Equitable estates (neither ownership nor possession, such as easements or right of ways, liens, and encumbrances)

Homesteading: see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_Act

In Panama, property ownership is defined in the Civil Code (Libro Segundo: De los bienes y de su dominio, posesión, uso y goce). 

Property

Property (ownership) is defined in the Civil Code as the right to possess, enjoy and alienate the item, without limitations (except those established by law).  Real estate property is defined as the ownership of the ground (soil) and the underground.  However, it does not extend to mining rights. 

Property or ownership gives the owner the right to receive the fruits produced by the asset (such as rents from the land, fruit from trees, etc.). 

Occupation is where you acquire the control or possession of the asset which does not belong to anyone else and whose acquisition is not prohibited by law. 

Possession

Possession is defined by the Panamanian Civil Code as holding an object or exercising a right, with the intent of ownership. 

Possession is acquired through the material occupation of the object or the right, or maintaining these at will, or acts and formalities established by law to acquire said right. 

Tenancy

Tenancy is defined by the Panamanian Civil Code as holding an object or exercising a right, without the intent of ownership.

Usufruct

Is the right to enjoy another's property, with the obligation to safeguard the form and substance.  Usufruct gives its holder the right to perceive all fruits from the object or asset, only for as long as they enjoy the right of usufruct. 

Use

The right of use is subject to the terms and conditions established in the agreement which creates the right.  Generally, it includes the right to receive the fruits of the object.  It may also include the right to inhabit. The right of use is non-transferable, nor may be it be "sub-let". 

Easement

Easements are liens or encumbrances places on real property for the benefit of a third party.  Easements may be continuous or not, depending on whether they are constantly used or not.  These are sometimes known as "right of way".  They may exist for the passage by car, walking, water, sewage, etc. 

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Last modified 26-Sep-2007 17:37 -0400