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PropertyProf Blog 

Post Frequency: 12.4/day Last Entry: March 31, 2011 at 11:58:57 Recent Entries: 1079
By D. Benjamin Barros and Alfred L. Brophy et al.
Go to PropertyProf Blog, find other Real Estate & Property Law blogs, or browse all law blogs.
Resources for Property Profs -- DIRT Listserv
Posted on February 03, 2011If you are not currently subscribed to the DIRT listserv, I recommend that you check it out. The listserv is moderated by Professor Pat Randolph of University of Missouri at Kansas City Law School. It is one of the few...
COP Hearing on Commercial Real Estate and Banks
Posted on February 03, 2011The Congressional Oversight Panel will be holding a hearing tomorrow, February 4th at 10:00 a.m. in room 538 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to "examine the current state of the commercial real estate market and its implications for bank...
Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Conference
Posted on February 03, 2011The good folks at William & Mary have announced the program for the Eighth Annual Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Conference. The conference will be making its international debut in Beijing, China on October 14-15, 2011. The organizers will recognize Sandra Day...
Davidson from Colorado to Fordham
Posted on February 02, 2011As a Fordham alum, I'm delighted that my good friend Nestor Davidson is joining the faculty at Fordham from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in posting]
The Commercial Real Estate Debt Crisis and Online Law Reviews
Posted on February 02, 2011The Harvard Business Law Review Online just published a short essay that I wrote about the commercial real estate debt crisis. As readers of the blog may recall, I am working on a much larger piece that will analyze the...
Recent SSRN Downloads
Posted on February 01, 2011In honor of the beginning of the month, here are the most downloaded property articles over the last 60 days. There's been a noticeable shakeup since last month: 1. [499 downloads] Mortgage Servicing by Adam J. Levitin (Georgetown) and Tara...
Rent or Buy?
Posted on January 31, 2011At the beginning of the the material on Landlord-Tenant, I do a song and dance about how this country has fetishized homeownership in very strange and unproductive ways. I also try to convince the class that (in financial terms) renting...
A Terrible Wind and Ice Storm Is Coming. Go Stand on Your Snow-Covered Roof.
Posted on January 31, 2011In keeping with Steve's post below, another reason home ownership may not be every it's cracked up to be: Today, New York City's Department of Buildings issued an advisory urging property owners to remove snow from their roofs and out...
How Much Mortgage and Foreclosure Crisis Do You Teach?
Posted on January 28, 2011I teach a lot of M&F crisis -- or at least I think I do. Property is (for the time being, at least) a two-semester, 6-credit odyssey at William Mitchell, so I have time I can devote to the crisis,...
Balganesh on Property in News
Posted on January 27, 2011Shyamkrishna Balganesh (Penn) has posted 'Hot News': The Enduring Myth of Property in News (Columbia Law Review) on SSRN. Here's the abstract: The ?hot news? doctrine refers to a cause of action for the misappropriation of time-sensitive factual information that...
The Popularity of Property Textbooks
Posted on January 26, 2011Snagging an idea from Lawrence Cunningham's post on Contracts casebooks, I decided to check out the Amazon sales of leading property textbooks. According to Amazon, these are the 10 most popular Property books (and their rank in total Amazon book...
Drexel Symposium on Business Improvement Districts
Posted on January 25, 2011Over at the Faculty Lounge, Dan Filler announces the publication of a symposium that will be of interest to many property profs. He writes: I'm very proud to say that the Drexel Law Review has published a particularly interesting and...
Foreclosing on God
Posted on January 25, 2011The Wall Street Journal has an article today regarding an upswing in foreclosure actions against religious groups. I don't think I can link to it since it is in a part of WSJ.com that is subscription only, but the article...
When Property Disappears
Posted on January 21, 2011Tony Barboza chronicles a growing problem along the nation's coastlines: What happens when the ocean moves in and tries to retake the land? Barboza writes: The effort by the city of Ventura [to move a bike path 65-feet inland] is...
Turner on Degrees of Property
Posted on January 20, 2011Peter G. Turner (Cambridge) has posted Degrees of Property. Here's the abstract: Navigating a way through a complex idea such as property can be tricky. What guides do we have? Jeremy Bentham showed the way by pointing out that property...
The 10 Greatest Landscape Paintings of All Time
Posted on January 19, 2011If you need a touch of inspiration, here are the 10 most beautiful, most amazing, most inspiring pictures of Blackacre ever put down on canvass: 10. Ivan Shiskin, A Rye Field 9. Milton Avery, Green Sea 8. Albert Bierstadt, The...
Revenge of the Fox
Posted on January 18, 2011For anyone who feels sorry about the fox in Pierson v. Post, this story about a fox who shot a hunter should bring some happiness. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in posting]
Anyone Need a Leaseholds Exam Question?
Posted on January 18, 2011Cause I gotta beauty for ya, right here. The New York Times reports that real estate developers have made such a visually appealing $80 million alteration to the facade and entrance of 112 West 34th Street in Manhattan that they...
The Burning Man Festival and The Origin of Property Rules
Posted on January 14, 2011Burning Man, a festival held in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada attracts roughly 50,000 participants each year. Nate Berg traces how the festival has evolved from a gathering of 20 friends "into a highly planned, intricately organized and fully...
Who Owns Your Placenta?
Posted on January 13, 2011My wife and I had a baby in December (yeah Capricorns!). During the end of 2010, I ended up reading a lot of stuff (often on the internet, often late at night) trying to prepare myself for the main event....
Rick Barber, George Washington, and The Right of Publicity
Posted on January 13, 2011One more video you may want to use when you cover the right of publicity. Last year a congressional candidate named Rick Barber shot a campaign ad that got a lot of attention. He sat at a kitchen table with...
Kelly from Baltimore to Notre Dame
Posted on January 12, 2011PropertyProf and clincian James J. Kelly, Jr. will be moving from Baltimore to Notre Dame, after a visit this spring at Washington & Lee. At Notre Dame, Jim will develop a new community development clinic. I've been a longtime admirer...
Kelly on Maryland's Affordable Housing Land Trust Act
Posted on January 12, 2011James J. Kelly Jr. (Baltimore, soon to be at Notre Dame) has posted Maryland's Affordable Housing Land Trust Act on SSRN. On May 20, 2010, Maryland?s governor, Martin O?Malley, signed the Affordable Housing Land Trust Act (AHLT Act) into law....
Mulvaney on Judicial Takings
Posted on January 12, 2011Timothy M. Mulvaney (Texas Wesleyan) has posted The New Judicial Takings Construct on SSRN. Here's the abstract: In Stop the Beach Renourishment, Inc. v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection, a four-Justice plurality endorsed a novel theory that would make the...
The World's Newest Capital City
Posted on January 11, 2011If Southern Sudan votes to cut off ties with the North, Juba will become the world's newest capital. The good folks at Foreign Policy have posted some photos of this city of 250,000. Steve Clowney [Comments will be held for...
Levitin and Twomey on Mortgage Servicing
Posted on January 11, 2011Adam Levitin (Georgetown) and Tara Twomey (National Consumer law Center) have posted Mortgage Servicing (Yale Journal on Regulation) on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This Article argues that a principal-agent problem plays a critical role in the current foreclosure crisis...
Foreclosures and the Failure of the American Land Title Recording System
Posted on January 10, 2011I have just posted an essay to SSRN entitled "Foreclosures and the Failure of the American Land Title Recording System." In it, I argue for the federalization of the land title recording system. Here is my abstract: In this essay,...
Right to Publicity
Posted on January 10, 2011If you are covering the Right to Publicity this week, as I am, you might want to check out a story that originally aired on 60 Minutes in 2009 and was updated last night. It is available on the show's...
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Restitutes Foreclosed Homes to Borrowers
Posted on January 08, 2011Yesterday the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court voided two foreclosures carried out by U.S. Bancorp and Wells Fargo in 2007. Both banks were acting as trustees for securitized pools of mortgage loans that allegedly included the borrowers' mortgage loans...
An Illegal Fifth Floor
Posted on January 06, 2011A story (with an impressive "now and then" graphic) about the fate of a Civil War era building in New York. In short: A building owner has ignored the city?s demands to dismantle a fifth story that was added to...
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New Baptist Covenant Blog
Last week, I pointed to the New Baptist Convenant website, now onl...
The Mexico Trucker Blog
I've written before about the perceived problems with relaxed rest...
Is it libel to write blog posts and/or online reviews about a local business that defames one's reputation?
Libel is the form of defamation expressed in fixed-- usually written form. Sland...
How can I make my blog more popular?
You have to write and submit articles, with backlinks to your blogsite....

Is it libel to write blog posts and/or online reviews about a local business that defames one's reputation?
Libel is the form of defamation expressed in fixed-- usually written form. Sland...
How can I make my blog more popular?
You have to write and submit articles, with backlinks to your blogsite....








