Reference / Glossary
Glossary
The language of California real estate, from accession to zoning.
251 terms
A
- Accounting
- Accurately safeguarding, tracking, and reporting money or property entrusted to the agent.
Fiduciary duties and duties to others - Accretion
- Gradual addition of soil through natural water action.
Water, environmental hazards, and special lands - Accrued depreciation
- The loss in improvement value from all relevant causes as of the appraisal date.
Cost, depreciation, and replacement - Acknowledgment
- A formal verification before an authorized officer that the signer executed the instrument.
Deeds, delivery, recording, and vesting - Actual authority
- Authority the principal intentionally gives the agent or allows the agent to believe exists.
Agency relationships and authority - Adjustable-rate mortgage
- A mortgage whose interest rate changes under a stated index, margin, and adjustment structure.
Loan structures and government programs - Adjusted basis
- Tax basis after permitted increases and decreases, such as capital improvements and depreciation.
Transfer taxes, gain, withholding, and prorations - Adjustment
- A supported modification to a comparable's price to account for a relevant difference from the subject.
Sales comparison and market evidence - Administrator
- A court-appointed personal representative where an executor does not serve.
Probate, court sales, and other transfers - Advance fee
- A fee claimed, demanded, charged, received, or collected before fully completing the contracted services within the governing statutory definition.
Listings, buyer representation, and advance fees - Adverse action
- A credit decision such as denial that can trigger required notices explaining the decision and related rights.
Credit law and loan origination - Agency confirmation
- Identification of the actual representation relationships in a particular transaction.
Agency disclosure, dual agency, and conflicts - Agency coupled with an interest
- Agency associated with a legally sufficient interest in the subject of the agency, beyond earning compensation.
Compensation and the end of an agency - Agency disclosure
- The statutory explanation of possible representation relationships and associated duties.
Agency disclosure, dual agency, and conflicts - Agent
- A person authorized to represent a principal in dealings with third persons.
Agency relationships and authority - Amount realized
- The proceeds measure used to determine gain, generally reduced by qualifying selling expenses.
Transfer taxes, gain, withholding, and prorations - Annual percentage rate
- A standardized annualized measure of credit cost including interest and specified finance charges.
Loan fundamentals and the mortgage market - Anticipation
- The principle that present value reflects expected future benefits.
Value and the principles behind it - Antitrust
- Laws protecting competition from prohibited agreements and exclusionary practices.
Ethics, advertising, and technology - Appropriative right
- A water use right based on lawful appropriation rather than merely adjoining a watercourse.
Water, environmental hazards, and special lands - Appurtenance
- A right or improvement belonging to and ordinarily passing with another property.
Property, rights, and fixtures - As-is sale
- A sale addressing the property's condition or repair obligations without eliminating duties to disclose known material facts.
Property disclosures, inspections, and reports - Assessor's parcel number
- An identifier used by a county assessor to track property for assessment purposes.
Legal descriptions and land measurement - Assignment
- A transfer of contractual rights to another person.
Performance, contingencies, and remedies - Audit trail
- A retained record of actions and changes that supports verification of a transaction's history.
Ethics, advertising, and technology - Avulsion
- A sudden perceptible change in land or a watercourse caused by water action.
Water, environmental hazards, and special lands
B
- Balloon payment
- A substantial remaining balance due at maturity after scheduled payments do not fully amortize the debt.
Loan structures and government programs - Base-year value
- The property-tax value established under Proposition 13, generally from the 1975 assessment or a later reassessable ownership change or new construction.
Transfer taxes, gain, withholding, and prorations - Beneficiary
- The party entitled to the secured obligation under a deed of trust, ordinarily the lender or its successor.
Notes, security instruments, and default - Beneficiary ledger
- A separate record showing receipts, disbursements, and balance belonging to an individual owner or transaction.
Trust funds and accountable money handling - Bilateral contract
- An agreement formed by an exchange of promises.
Contract formation and enforceability - Blanket loan
- A loan secured by more than one parcel or property.
Loan structures and government programs - Blind advertisement
- An advertisement that fails to adequately disclose the advertiser's required professional identity.
Ethics, advertising, and technology - Blockbusting
- Inducing transactions for profit by exploiting fears about entry of protected groups into an area.
Fair housing and service across communities - Boot
- Non-like-kind value received in an exchange that can trigger recognition of gain.
Transfer taxes, gain, withholding, and prorations - Brownfield
- Property whose reuse or redevelopment may be complicated by actual or potential contamination.
Water, environmental hazards, and special lands - Bulk sale
- A sale outside the ordinary course of business of more than half the seller's inventory and equipment by value, subject to statutory coverage and exclusions.
Commercial property and specialty transactions - Business opportunity
- A business enterprise or opportunity whose transfer can involve assets, goodwill, and leasehold rights.
Commercial property and specialty transactions - Buyer-broker representation agreement
- A written contract authorizing a brokerage to provide specified licensed services to a buyer.
Listings, buyer representation, and advance fees
C
- Capitalization rate
- The rate relating one year's net operating income to property value in direct capitalization.
Income, capitalization, and financial analysis - Cash-on-cash return
- Annual before-tax cash flow divided by the investor's initial cash investment under the stated convention.
Income, capitalization, and financial analysis - CC&Rs
- Covenants, conditions, and restrictions establishing private limits and obligations affecting property.
Public and private land use controls - Chain of title
- The sequence of recorded ownership transfers affecting a property.
Title insurance and escrow - Closing Disclosure
- The standardized disclosure of final loan terms and costs for covered mortgages before consummation.
Credit law and loan origination - Cloud on title
- An apparent claim or defect that creates uncertainty about ownership or its quality.
Title insurance and escrow - Commingling
- Improperly mixing entrusted funds with the broker's personal or business funds.
Trust funds and accountable money handling - Commission
- Compensation for brokerage services under a negotiated agreement.
Compensation and the end of an agency - Comparable sale
- A transaction involving a sufficiently similar property that provides relevant evidence of value.
Sales comparison and market evidence - Concurrent conditions
- Obligations intended to be performed at the same time.
Performance, contingencies, and remedies - Condition precedent
- An event that must occur before a particular contractual duty becomes due.
Performance, contingencies, and remedies - Conditional use permit
- Approval of a use allowed conditionally under the zoning framework when required findings and conditions are satisfied.
Public and private land use controls - Confidentiality
- The duty to protect a client's nonpublic information except when disclosure is authorized or legally required.
Fiduciary duties and duties to others - Conforming loan
- A loan meeting applicable secondary-market standards, including the relevant loan-size limit.
Loan structures and government programs - Conservation easement
- A legally enforceable interest restricting land use to protect identified conservation purposes.
Water, environmental hazards, and special lands - Consideration
- A bargained-for legal benefit or detriment supporting a contract.
Contract formation and enforceability - Constructive fraud
- A breach of duty in a confidential or fiduciary relationship that can be fraudulent without deliberate dishonesty.
Fiduciary duties and duties to others - Constructive notice
- Notice the law attributes to a person, including from properly recorded instruments.
Deeds, delivery, recording, and vesting - Consumer Recovery Account
- A statutory source of limited recovery for eligible uncompensated losses caused by licensee fraud or trust fund conversion.
Licensing, supervision, and consumer protection - Continuing education
- Approved coursework required for renewal after initial licensing.
Licensing, supervision, and consumer protection - Contribution
- The principle that a component's value depends on its effect on the property's total value.
Value and the principles behind it - Control record
- The chronological account record of all receipts and disbursements and its running balance.
Trust funds and accountable money handling - Conventional loan
- A mortgage not insured or guaranteed by a government mortgage program such as FHA or VA.
Loan structures and government programs - Conversion
- Unauthorized use or appropriation of another person's funds or property.
Trust funds and accountable money handling - Cost
- The expenditure required to acquire, produce, or construct an asset.
Value and the principles behind it - Counteroffer
- A proposed agreement that changes the offered terms and requires acceptance.
Contract formation and enforceability
D
- Debt service coverage ratio
- Net operating income divided by annual debt service.
Income, capitalization, and financial analysis - Debt-to-income ratio
- Qualifying monthly debt obligations divided by qualifying gross monthly income.
Loan fundamentals and the mortgage market - Decedent
- A person who has died.
Probate, court sales, and other transfers - Deficiency
- Debt remaining after application of foreclosure proceeds, with collection limited by applicable law.
Notes, security instruments, and default - Delivery
- The grantor's act manifesting intent that a deed become presently operative.
Deeds, delivery, recording, and vesting - Discount point
- A charge equal to one percent of the loan amount, commonly paid to obtain a lower interest rate.
Loan fundamentals and the mortgage market - Documentary transfer tax
- A tax imposed under applicable law on specified instruments transferring real property.
Transfer taxes, gain, withholding, and prorations - Dominant tenement
- The parcel benefited by an appurtenant easement.
Easements, liens, and encumbrances - Dual agency
- Representation of both seller and buyer by the same brokerage in the same transaction.
Agency disclosure, dual agency, and conflicts
E
- Easement appurtenant
- An easement benefiting a parcel of land and burdening another parcel.
Easements, liens, and encumbrances - Easement in gross
- An easement benefiting a person or entity rather than a dominant parcel.
Easements, liens, and encumbrances - ECOA
- The Equal Credit Opportunity Act, prohibiting discrimination in covered credit decisions.
Credit law and loan origination - Economic life
- The period during which an improvement contributes value to the property.
Cost, depreciation, and replacement - Effective age
- An age estimate reflecting condition and utility rather than merely time since construction.
Cost, depreciation, and replacement - Effective gross income
- Potential income less vacancy and collection losses, plus applicable other income.
Income, capitalization, and financial analysis - Eminent domain
- The power to acquire private property for public use subject to constitutional compensation requirements.
Public and private land use controls - Encroachment
- A physical intrusion over a boundary onto another property.
Easements, liens, and encumbrances - Encumbrance
- A claim, right, or burden affecting property that can limit title, use, or value.
Easements, liens, and encumbrances - Escheat
- Transfer to the state under applicable law when property has no legally entitled owner or successor.
Public and private land use controls - Escrow
- A conditional arrangement in which a third party holds money or instruments for delivery when specified conditions are met.
Title insurance and escrow - Estate
- The nature, extent, and duration of a person's interest in real property.
Estates and forms of ownership - Estoppel certificate
- A tenant's statement confirming specified lease facts on which a purchaser or lender may rely.
Commercial property and specialty transactions - Exclusive agency listing
- A listing giving one broker representation while generally preserving an owner's independent-sale exception.
Listings, buyer representation, and advance fees - Exclusive right to sell
- A listing generally providing compensation when a sale occurs during the term regardless of who produces the buyer, subject to its terms.
Listings, buyer representation, and advance fees - Executor
- A personal representative nominated by a will and appointed through the required process.
Probate, court sales, and other transfers - External obsolescence
- Loss caused by influences outside the property.
Cost, depreciation, and replacement
F
- Factored base-year value
- A property's base-year value adjusted by the annual California inflation factor, with each annual increase limited to 2 percent.
Transfer taxes, gain, withholding, and prorations - Familial status
- Protection involving households with children under 18, pregnancy, and people obtaining custody, subject to applicable law.
Fair housing and service across communities - Fee simple
- The broadest ordinarily available ownership estate, potentially unlimited in duration.
Estates and forms of ownership - Fiduciary
- A person who must act with heightened loyalty and care for another within a relationship of trust.
Fiduciary duties and duties to others - Fiduciary-transfer exemption
- A statutory TDS exemption for specified administration transfers, subject to an exception for certain natural-person trustees of revocable trusts.
Property disclosures, inspections, and reports - Fixture
- An item that was personal property and has become part of the real property through attachment and related circumstances.
Property, rights, and fixtures - Functional obsolescence
- Loss caused by shortcomings or excesses in design, layout, or utility within the property.
Cost, depreciation, and replacement
G
- General agent
- An agent authorized to handle a continuing range of activities in a particular business.
Agency relationships and authority - General plan
- A local government's comprehensive statement of long-term development policies.
Public and private land use controls - Grant deed
- A deed conveying an interest with the limited implied covenants associated with the word grant.
Deeds, delivery, recording, and vesting - Grantee
- The person receiving an interest in real property by deed.
Deeds, delivery, recording, and vesting - Grantor
- The person conveying an interest in real property by deed.
Deeds, delivery, recording, and vesting - Gross adjustment
- The sum of the absolute amounts of adjustments to a comparable.
Sales comparison and market evidence - Gross rent multiplier
- A ratio of sale price to gross rent for a specified period.
Income, capitalization, and financial analysis
H
- Habitability
- The legally required condition of residential premises suitable for human occupancy.
Residential property management - Highest and best use
- The reasonably probable use that is legally permissible, physically possible, financially feasible, and maximally productive.
Value and the principles behind it
I
- Informed consent
- Agreement made with knowledge of the material facts and implications requiring consent.
Agency disclosure, dual agency, and conflicts - Interest
- The charge for using borrowed money, ordinarily calculated from a rate and outstanding principal.
Loan fundamentals and the mortgage market - Intestate
- Dying without a valid will disposing of the property in question.
Probate, court sales, and other transfers
J
- Joint tenancy
- Concurrent ownership expressly created with equal shares and a right of survivorship, subject to severance.
Estates and forms of ownership - Just cause
- A legally recognized reason required for certain tenancy terminations under applicable state or local law.
Residential property management
L
- Land sale contract
- A financing arrangement in which the seller retains legal title while the buyer performs installment obligations.
Purchase agreements, options, leases, and notes - Latent defect
- A defect not readily apparent through ordinary observation.
Property disclosures, inspections, and reports - Leasehold
- A possessory interest for a duration or tenancy relationship less than a freehold estate.
Estates and forms of ownership - Legal description
- A description sufficient to identify the particular real property involved in an instrument.
Legal descriptions and land measurement - Lender's policy
- Title insurance protecting the lender's insured security interest under the policy terms.
Title insurance and escrow - Lender/Purchaser Disclosure Statement
- California's disclosure to a covered prospective lender or note purchaser addressing the loan, borrower, collateral, and investment terms.
Credit law and loan origination - Lessee
- The party receiving a leasehold right of possession.
Purchase agreements, options, leases, and notes - Lessor
- The party granting a leasehold right of possession.
Purchase agreements, options, leases, and notes - Leverage
- The use of borrowed funds to acquire or hold an investment, magnifying effects on the owner's equity.
Income, capitalization, and financial analysis - Licensed act
- An activity for which California requires a real estate license unless a statutory exemption applies.
Licensing, supervision, and consumer protection - Lien
- A financial claim against property that secures an obligation.
Easements, liens, and encumbrances - Life estate
- An estate measured by the life of a designated person.
Estates and forms of ownership - Liquidated damages
- An agreed amount or measure of damages subject to enforceability requirements.
Performance, contingencies, and remedies - Listing agreement
- A contract employing a brokerage to perform specified services for a seller.
Listings, buyer representation, and advance fees - Loan Estimate
- The early standardized disclosure of terms and estimated costs for most covered closed-end real-property mortgage loans.
Credit law and loan origination - Loan-to-value ratio
- Loan amount divided by the property's applicable value for the lending calculation.
Loan fundamentals and the mortgage market - Loyalty
- Putting the principal's interests ahead of the agent's conflicting interests within the agency.
Fiduciary duties and duties to others
M
- Management agreement
- The contract defining a property manager's authority, duties, compensation, and relationship with the owner.
Residential property management - Market value
- An opinion of the probable exchange value under a defined set of market conditions as of a specified date.
Value and the principles behind it - Material amendment
- A significant change to a required disclosure that can trigger a buyer's statutory termination opportunity.
Property disclosures, inspections, and reports - Material fact
- Information significant to a reasonable person's decision about the property's value or desirability.
Fiduciary duties and duties to others - Metes and bounds
- A boundary description using directions, distances, and calls to monuments or other boundaries.
Legal descriptions and land measurement - Misrepresentation
- A false or misleading statement of fact that may create liability depending on the circumstances.
Ethics, advertising, and technology - Monument
- A natural or artificial reference used to locate a boundary or survey point.
Legal descriptions and land measurement - Mortgage insurance
- Insurance protecting the lender against specified losses from borrower default.
Loan structures and government programs - Mortgage Loan Disclosure Statement
- California's borrower disclosure for covered broker-arranged real-property loans, including loan costs and broker compensation.
Credit law and loan origination - Mortgage loan originator
- A person performing covered residential application or loan-term activities for compensation or gain under applicable law.
Credit law and loan origination
N
- Natural Hazard Disclosure
- Disclosure of whether property is within specified mapped hazard areas.
Property disclosures, inspections, and reports - Negligent misrepresentation
- An actionable false assertion made without reasonable grounds for believing it true.
Fiduciary duties and duties to others - Net adjustment
- The algebraic total of positive and negative adjustments to a comparable.
Sales comparison and market evidence - Net lease
- A lease allocating specified property expenses to the tenant in addition to base rent.
Commercial property and specialty transactions - Net listing
- An arrangement in which the broker's compensation is the amount above the owner's specified net, subject to fiduciary obligations.
Listings, buyer representation, and advance fees - Net operating income
- Property operating income after operating expenses but before debt service and owner income taxes.
Income, capitalization, and financial analysis - Notice of default
- The recorded notice that begins California's statutory nonjudicial foreclosure sequence, after applicable pre-recording requirements.
Notes, security instruments, and default - Novation
- An agreed substitution of a new obligation or party that discharges the replaced obligation.
Performance, contingencies, and remedies
O
- Open listing
- A nonexclusive brokerage employment agreement allowing competing brokers and the owner to seek a buyer.
Listings, buyer representation, and advance fees - Optionee
- The person holding the choice to exercise an option.
Purchase agreements, options, leases, and notes - Optionor
- The person granting another a contractual right to buy or lease on specified terms.
Purchase agreements, options, leases, and notes - Ordinary wear and tear
- Deterioration from normal use that is not chargeable to the tenant as damage.
Residential property management - Ostensible authority
- Authority a principal causes a third person reasonably to believe the agent possesses.
Agency relationships and authority - Overlying right
- A right to reasonable beneficial use of groundwater on land overlying the basin, subject to applicable law.
Water, environmental hazards, and special lands - Owner's policy
- Title insurance protecting the named owner's insured interest under the policy terms.
Title insurance and escrow
P
- Paired sales analysis
- Comparison of sufficiently similar sales to isolate the market effect of a differing feature.
Sales comparison and market evidence - Partition
- A proceeding to divide cotenancy property or arrange a sale and distribution of proceeds.
Probate, court sales, and other transfers - Pay-or-quit notice
- A notice demanding payment of specified overdue rent or surrender of possession within the applicable statutory period.
Residential property management - Percentage lease
- A lease under which rent includes an amount calculated from the tenant's sales under agreed terms.
Commercial property and specialty transactions - Personal property
- Property that is not classified as real property, including movable goods and many intangible rights.
Property, rights, and fixtures - Phishing
- A deceptive communication designed to obtain credentials, money, or sensitive information.
Ethics, advertising, and technology - Physical deterioration
- Loss caused by wear, damage, aging, or decay of physical components.
Cost, depreciation, and replacement - Plottage
- An increase in value created by combining parcels beyond their separate aggregate value.
Value and the principles behind it - Point of beginning
- The starting location of a described boundary traverse.
Legal descriptions and land measurement - Police power
- Government authority to regulate for public health, safety, welfare, and related legitimate purposes.
Public and private land use controls - Potential gross income
- The income a property could generate at full occupancy and collection under the stated assumptions.
Income, capitalization, and financial analysis - Power of attorney
- An instrument authorizing an attorney-in-fact to act for a principal within stated powers.
Agency relationships and authority - Preliminary title report
- An offer to issue a title policy subject to stated requirements, exceptions, and conditions.
Title insurance and escrow - Preventive maintenance
- Scheduled work intended to reduce failure, damage, and larger future repairs.
Residential property management - Price
- The amount asked, offered, or actually paid in a transaction.
Value and the principles behind it - Principal
- A person who authorizes another to act on that person's behalf.
Agency relationships and authority - Probate
- The legal process for administering a deceased person's estate and distributing property as required.
Probate, court sales, and other transfers - Procuring cause
- The effective cause that produces a transaction, evaluated under the applicable agreement and facts.
Compensation and the end of an agency - Promissory note
- The written promise to repay debt under stated terms.
Notes, security instruments, and default - Proration
- Allocation of a periodic expense or income between parties according to time or another agreed basis.
Title insurance and escrow - Protection clause
- A contract provision that may preserve compensation rights for specified transactions after expiration.
Compensation and the end of an agency - Public report
- A DRE disclosure document for a regulated subdivision or timeshare offering, not an investment endorsement.
Commercial property and specialty transactions - Public trust
- The doctrine under which certain lands and waters are held for public uses such as navigation, commerce, fishing, and related purposes.
Water, environmental hazards, and special lands - Puffing
- Promotional opinion or exaggeration distinguishable from a concrete factual claim.
Ethics, advertising, and technology
Q
- Quitclaim deed
- A deed transferring whatever present interest the grantor has without grant-deed implied covenants.
Deeds, delivery, recording, and vesting
R
- Ratification
- A principal's informed adoption of a previously unauthorized act.
Agency relationships and authority - Ready, willing, and able buyer
- A buyer prepared to agree to the seller's authorized terms and financially capable of performing.
Compensation and the end of an agency - Real property
- Land, things affixed to it, appurtenant rights, and items classified as immovable by law.
Property, rights, and fixtures - Realized gain
- The excess of amount realized over adjusted basis.
Transfer taxes, gain, withholding, and prorations - Reasonable accommodation
- A necessary and reasonable change to a policy, practice, rule, or service to provide equal housing opportunity to a person with a disability.
Fair housing and service across communities - Reasonable modification
- A necessary physical alteration that enables a person with a disability to use and enjoy housing.
Fair housing and service across communities - Recognized gain
- Gain included in taxable income after applicable exclusions or deferrals.
Transfer taxes, gain, withholding, and prorations - Reconciliation
- Evaluation of the reliability and relevance of value indications to reach a final conclusion.
Sales comparison and market evidence - Reconveyance
- The release of a deed-of-trust security interest through the applicable document and procedure.
Notes, security instruments, and default - Redlining
- Discriminatory denial or restriction of housing-related credit or services based on an area's protected-group composition.
Fair housing and service across communities - Reinstatement
- Curing specified defaults and costs to restore the loan without paying the entire accelerated principal.
Notes, security instruments, and default - Remainder
- A future estate in another person that becomes possessory after the preceding estate ends.
Estates and forms of ownership - Rent roll
- A schedule of rental units or spaces, tenants, lease terms, rents, and related occupancy information.
Commercial property and specialty transactions - Renunciation
- An agent's withdrawal from the agency.
Compensation and the end of an agency - Replacement cost
- Current cost of a substitute improvement with equivalent utility using contemporary materials and methods.
Cost, depreciation, and replacement - Reproduction cost
- Current cost of constructing a duplicate of the existing improvement.
Cost, depreciation, and replacement - Rescission
- A statutory right to cancel certain consumer credit transactions within the applicable period.
Credit law and loan origination - RESPA
- The Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, governing covered settlement practices, referrals, and servicing matters.
Credit law and loan origination - Responsible broker
- The broker accountable for supervising affiliated salespersons and brokerage activities.
Licensing, supervision, and consumer protection - Restricted license
- A license whose exercise is limited by conditions imposed by DRE.
Licensing, supervision, and consumer protection - Reverse mortgage
- A loan allowing qualifying borrowers to access equity with repayment generally deferred until specified events.
Loan structures and government programs - Revocation
- A principal's withdrawal of an agent's authority.
Compensation and the end of an agency - Right of first refusal
- A right to an opportunity to purchase on stated terms if a specified sale trigger occurs.
Purchase agreements, options, leases, and notes - Riparian right
- A right associated with qualifying land adjoining a natural watercourse to reasonable use of its natural flow.
Water, environmental hazards, and special lands - Roomer or boarder
- A person living within a household; California's specified owner-occupied single-family exception is limited to no more than one such person.
Fair housing and service across communities
S
- Secondary mortgage market
- The market in which existing mortgages or mortgage-backed interests are bought and sold.
Loan fundamentals and the mortgage market - Secret profit
- An undisclosed benefit an agent obtains through the agency in conflict with the principal's interests.
Agency disclosure, dual agency, and conflicts - Section
- A nominal one-square-mile survey unit containing 640 acres before irregularities.
Legal descriptions and land measurement - Security agreement
- An agreement creating a security interest in identified collateral, commonly personal property.
Purchase agreements, options, leases, and notes - Security deposit
- Tenant money held for legally permitted obligations, regardless of the label used for the charge.
Residential property management - Self-dealing
- An agent's participation in a transaction for the agent's own benefit while owing duties to a principal.
Agency disclosure, dual agency, and conflicts - Servient tenement
- The parcel burdened by an easement.
Easements, liens, and encumbrances - Severalty
- Ownership by one person or legal entity rather than concurrent owners.
Estates and forms of ownership - Severance
- Detachment that changes an item from real property to personal property.
Property, rights, and fixtures - Single agency
- Representation of one principal in a transaction rather than opposing principals.
Agency disclosure, dual agency, and conflicts - Situs
- A property's location and the economic advantages or disadvantages associated with it.
Property, rights, and fixtures - Source of income
- A protected characteristic under California law that includes qualifying public rental assistance.
Fair housing and service across communities - Special agent
- An agent appointed for a particular transaction or narrowly defined purpose.
Agency relationships and authority - Specific performance
- A court order requiring a party to perform the contractual promise.
Performance, contingencies, and remedies - Statute of frauds
- Rules requiring specified agreements to be evidenced by a sufficient signed writing.
Contract formation and enforceability - Statutory redemption
- A post-sale right to recover property by the required payment, available for specified judicial foreclosures but not an ordinary completed nonjudicial trustee sale.
Notes, security instruments, and default - Steering
- Directing a person's housing choices based on protected characteristics rather than that person's stated needs.
Fair housing and service across communities - Subject property
- The property interest being valued.
Sales comparison and market evidence - Subordinate assistance loan
- A junior loan used for eligible acquisition costs with repayment terms set by the assistance program.
Loan structures and government programs - Subordination
- An agreement or legal result placing one interest behind another in priority.
Easements, liens, and encumbrances - Substituted disclosure
- Qualifying expert information used to satisfy specified disclosure content under statutory conditions.
Property disclosures, inspections, and reports - Substitution
- The principle that comparable alternatives constrain what an informed buyer will pay.
Value and the principles behind it - Successor liability
- A buyer's potential responsibility for specified obligations of a prior business owner, including tax amounts that should have been withheld from the purchase price.
Commercial property and specialty transactions - Supplemental assessment
- An assessment reflecting a qualifying change in taxable property value between regular assessment cycles.
Transfer taxes, gain, withholding, and prorations
T
- Tax clearance
- An agency's confirmation addressing specified tax obligations, distinct from a private creditor's lien release or a bulk-sale notice.
Commercial property and specialty transactions - Tenancy in common
- Concurrent ownership with undivided interests and no inherent right of survivorship.
Estates and forms of ownership - Tenant improvement
- An alteration or buildout that adapts leased premises for a tenant's use.
Commercial property and specialty transactions - Tender
- An offer to perform an obligation in accordance with its terms.
Performance, contingencies, and remedies - Testate
- Dying with a valid will governing the property in question.
Probate, court sales, and other transfers - TILA
- The Truth in Lending Act, a federal law governing disclosure of consumer credit costs and other credit protections.
Credit law and loan origination - Township
- In the rectangular survey system, a nominal six-mile-square area containing 36 sections.
Legal descriptions and land measurement - Trade fixture
- An item a tenant installs for a business purpose that may remain removable under applicable law and the lease.
Property, rights, and fixtures - Transfer Disclosure Statement
- The statutory California form disclosing property condition in covered residential transfers.
Property disclosures, inspections, and reports - Trust funds
- Money or other value received by a licensee on behalf of another in a licensed transaction.
Trust funds and accountable money handling - Trust shortage
- A condition in which available entrusted funds are insufficient to satisfy amounts owed to their owners.
Trust funds and accountable money handling - Trustee
- The party holding the limited powers conveyed by a deed of trust, including authorized reconveyance or sale.
Notes, security instruments, and default - Trustor
- The borrower or property owner who gives a deed of trust as security.
Notes, security instruments, and default
U
- Unenforceable
- Not judicially enforceable because of a legal defense or unmet requirement.
Contract formation and enforceability - Unilateral contract
- An agreement accepted by the requested performance rather than a return promise.
Contract formation and enforceability - Unlawful detainer
- A court proceeding used to recover possession when the legal requirements for eviction are met.
Residential property management - Unlicensed assistant
- A worker limited to permitted support activities who cannot perform work requiring a license.
Licensing, supervision, and consumer protection
V
- Variance
- Authorized relief from a zoning restriction based on qualifying property-specific circumstances.
Public and private land use controls - Vesting
- The manner in which title is held by its owner or owners.
Deeds, delivery, recording, and vesting - Visual inspection
- The reasonably competent and diligent observation required of agents in covered transactions, within its statutory scope.
Property disclosures, inspections, and reports - Void
- Having no legal force from inception.
Contract formation and enforceability - Voidable
- Subject to avoidance by a party whom the law protects.
Contract formation and enforceability
W
- Withholding
- A tax prepayment collected and remitted as required, distinct from final tax liability.
Transfer taxes, gain, withholding, and prorations