Real Property on the bar exam

Real Property is the subject most often described as memorisation-heavy, and that description is half right. Estates, future interests, and recording acts do require precise vocabulary, but the questions themselves are usually a chain of conveyances that must be tracked in order.

The reliable approach is to draw the chain of title, label each interest as it is created, and only then apply the recording act or the rule against perpetuities.

• Future interests questions require naming the interest precisely, not describing it.
• Recording act problems depend on which type of statute applies — race, notice, or race-notice — and on bona fide purchaser status.
• Easements and covenants are distinguished by their requirements for enforcement against successors.
• Landlord-tenant questions frequently combine assignment, sublease, and the covenant of quiet enjoyment.

• Diagram every conveyance problem. Candidates who answer these from prose consistently lose points.
• Memorise the recording act definitions verbatim; paraphrases fail on the exam.
• Treat the rule against perpetuities as its own short study block rather than part of the estates chapter.

174 pages across 19 chapters, organised in the order the law applies:

• Present estates, defeasible fees, and future interests
• Rule against perpetuities
• Concurrent ownership and cotenant rights
• Landlord-tenant, assignment, and sublease
• Easements, covenants, and equitable servitudes
• Adverse possession and land sale contracts
• Deeds, recording acts, and BFP status
• Mortgages, foreclosure, zoning, and eminent domain

• Civil Procedure
• Constitutional Law
• Contracts and Sales (UCC Article 2)
• Criminal Law and Procedure
• Evidence
• Torts
• Business Associations
• Multistate Performance Test (MPT)
• Professional Responsibility (MPRE)