Title 42, Real Property.

Whenever a recorded conservation easement has been registered with the Mayor, written consent of the holder of the registered and recorded conservation easement shall be required prior to the recordation of a subdivision by the Office of the Surveyor, and to the issuance of a per…

(a) An action affecting a conservation easement may be brought by 1 of the following: (1) An owner of an interest in the real property burdened by the easement; (2) A holder of the easement; (3) A person having a third-party right of enforcement; or (4) A person authorized by oth…

(a) This chapter applies to any interest created after May 16, 1986, which complies with this chapter, whether designated as a conservation easement or as a covenant, equitable servitude, restriction, easement, or otherwise. (b) This chapter applies to any interest created before…

This chapter shall be applied and construed to effectuate its general purpose to make uniform the laws with respect to the subject of the chapter among states enacting it.

Any interest in or claim to real estate whether entitling to present or future possession and enjoyment, and whether vested or contingent, may be disposed of by deed or will, and any estate which would be good as an executory devise may be created by deed.

Any person claiming title to land may convey his interest in the same, notwithstanding there may be an adverse possession thereof.

(a) For the purposes of this section, “commercial lease” means a lease for nonresidential real property. (b) Except as provided in subsection (c) of this section, no estate of inheritance, or for life, or for a longer term than 1 year, in any real property, corporeal or incorpore…

Any deed conveying real property in the District, or interest therein, or declaring or limiting any use or trust thereof, executed and acknowledged and certified as provided in §§ 42-602 and 42-306, and Chapter 12A of Title 1, and delivered to the person in whose favor the same i…

(a) Any instrument recorded in the Office of the Recorder of Deeds before April 27, 1994, shall be effective notwithstanding the existence of 1 or more of the failures in the formal requisites listed in § 42-404, unless the failure was challenged in a judicial proceeding commence…

Any instrument recorded in the Office of the Recorder of Deeds on or after September 21, 2022 shall be effective notwithstanding the existence of any failures in the formal requisites listed in § 42-404.

(a) The failures in the formal requisites of an instrument that may be cured by this act are: (1) An omission of an acknowledgment, defective or improper acknowledgment, or any failure to meet a requirement in the taking of an acknowledgment; (2) A failure to attach a clerk’s cer…

(a) Any owner, as defined under § 47-802(5), of real property entitled to receive notices under Chapter 8 of Title 47 shall notify the Office of Tax and Revenue of a name change or address change within 30 days. (b) Any name change shall be evidenced by the recording of a confirm…

When 2 or more deeds of the same property are made to bona fide purchasers for value without notice, the deed or deeds which are first recorded according to law shall be preferred.

The Recorder of Deeds shall not: (1) Accept for recordation any instrument unless the instrument is executed and acknowledged according to law by the person granting or contracting his or her right, title, or interest in the real property; (2) Accept for recordation any deed, as …

The record or a copy thereof of any deed recorded shall be evidence thereof, in the same manner and shall have the same effect as if such deed had been originally executed, acknowledged, and recorded according to law.

Any title bond or other written contract in relation to land may be acknowledged, certified, and recorded in the same manner and with like effect as to notice as deeds for the conveyance of land.

It shall not be lawful for any person or persons to record any map or plat of the subdivision of land in the District of Columbia in the office of the Recorder of Deeds for said District, whether such map or plat be attached to a deed or other document or is offered separately fo…

Estates in land in the District shall be estates of inheritance, estates for life, estates for years, estates at will, and estates by sufferance.

All estates of inheritance, including such as were formerly estates tail, shall be adjudged estates in fee simple.

An estate in fee simple may be either absolute or qualified, as to one and his heirs during an existing condition of things of uncertain duration.

Estates of inheritance and estates for life shall continue to be denominated freeholds, and estates for years shall be chattels real; estates at will or by sufferance shall be chattel interests, but shall not be liable, as such, to sale under execution; and all estates may be sub…

An estate for the life of a third person, whether limited to heirs or otherwise, shall be deemed a freehold only during the life of the grantee or devisee, but after his death it shall be deemed a chattel real and be a part of his personal estate.

Estates are either in possession or in expectancy.

An estate in possession exists when the owner has an immediate right to the possession of the land.

An estate in expectancy is either a reversion or a future estate.

A reversion is the residue of an estate left in the grantor who has conveyed, or in the heirs of the devisor who has devised a particular estate less than his own, and which residue returns to his or their possession on the expiration of the particular estate.

A future estate is one limited to commence at a future day, either without the intervention of a precedent estate or after the expiration or determination of a precedent estate created at the same time and by the same conveyance or devise.

If it is to commence upon the full expiration of such precedent estate, it is a remainder and may be transferred by that name. If it is to commence on a contingency which, if it happen, will abridge or determine such precedent estate before its expiration, it shall be known as a …

A future estate is vested when there is a person in being who would have an immediate right to the possession of the land upon the expiration of the intermediate or precedent estate, or upon the arrival of a certain period or event when it is to commence in possession. It is cont…

Two or more future estates may be created to take effect in the alternative, so that if the first in order shall fail to vest the next in succession may be substituted for it and take effect accordingly.

No expectant estate can be defeated or barred by any alienation or other act of the owner of the intermediate or precedent estate, nor by any destruction of such precedent estate, by disseizin, forfeiture, surrender, merger, or otherwise, except when such destruction is expressly…

Expectant estates shall be descendible, devisable, and alienable in the same manner as estates in possession.

(a) Every estate granted or devised to 2 or more persons in their own right, including estates granted or devised to spouses or domestic partners, as defined in § 32-701(3), shall be a tenancy in common, unless expressly declared to be a joint tenancy; but every estate vested in …

There shall be no estate in coparcenary in the District, and where 2 or more persons inherit from an intestate they shall be tenants in common.

An estate for a determined period of time is an estate for years.

An estate expressed to be from year to year shall be good for 1 year only.

All estates which by construction of the courts were estates from year to year at common law, as where a tenant goes into possession and pays rent without an agreement for a term, or where a tenant for years, after the expiration of his term, continues in possession and pays rent…

An estate may be from month to month or from quarter to quarter, or, as otherwise expressed, it may be by the month or by the quarter, if so expressed in writing.

An estate at will is one held by the joint will of lessor and lessee, and which may be terminated at any time, as herein elsewhere provided, by either party; and such estate shall not exist or be created except by express contract; provided, however, that in case of a sale of rea…

All the provisions of this chapter and of §§ 42-302 to 42-304 [repealed], 42-703, and 42-704 shall apply to personal property generally except where from the nature of the property they are inapplicable.

The following forms or forms to the like effect shall be sufficient, and any covenant, limitation, restriction, or proviso allowed by law may be added, annexed to, or introduced in the said forms. Any other form conforming to the rules herein laid down shall be sufficient: FEE SI…

The deed of a corporation shall be executed and acknowledged either (1) by an attorney-in-fact appointed for that purpose or (2) without appointment, by its president or a vice-president if also attested by the secretary or assistant secretary of the corporation.

When, in any deed, the word “covenant” is used, such word shall have the same effect as if the covenant was expressed to be by the covenantor, for himself, his heirs, devisees, and personal representatives, and shall be deemed to be with the grantee or lessee, his heirs, devisees…

A covenant by the grantor, in a deed conveying real estate, “that he will warrant generally the property hereby conveyed,” or a grant of real estate in which the granting words are followed by the words “with general warranty,” shall have the same effect as if the grantor had cov…

A covenant by a grantor in a deed conveying real estate, “that he will warrant specially the property hereby conveyed,” or a grant of real estate in which the granting words are followed by the words “with special warranty,” shall have the same effect as if the grantor had covena…

A covenant by the grantor in a deed of land, “that the said grantee shall quietly enjoy said land,” shall have the same effect as if he had covenanted that the said grantee, his heirs, and assigns, shall, at any and all times after March 3, 1901, peaceably and quietly enter upon,…