Ownership entitles owners to assign away some lesser property rights and retain other such rights. This chapter studies the cases for and against these lesser rights, called in this chapter “component” rights. Component rights may and should be limited when they help owners and the likely assignees of component rights use the resources more productively. The rights may and should be limited when they interfere with the clarity of property rights and when they interfere with opportunities of people who are not assignees to have sufficient access to resources. Property’s productive use requirement also justifies correlative doctrines between people who hold component rights in the same resource. This chapter studies leases, servitudes, security interests, present possessory estates, and future interests. To study limits on component rights, this chapter studies formalities requirements, standard terms of art for different component rights, the numerus clausus principle, the Rule Against Perpetuities, and the doctrine terminating servitudes for changed conditions. To study correlative rights, this chapter studies the doctrine of ameliorative waste.

Chapter 4 focuses on how ownership of immovables and movables are transferred (that is, whether registration is not needed, necessary, or creating opposability to third parties), whether registration creates absolutism (public faith principle), whether a real agreement is conceptually separate from a sale contract, and whether an invalid sale contract always leads to the invalidity of a real agreement (non-causa principle), and whether delivery or certain intentions are required to transfer ownership of personal properties or the sale contract itself is sufficient. This is where the traditional idea of legal families is conspicuous. Transfer doctrines involve how notice is given. The choice of registration system demonstrates how states, given path dependence, trade off transaction costs and third-party information costs. Which type of conveyance doctrine regarding immovables is efficient is contingent on factors outside of the law. It is easier to reform conveyance doctrine regarding movables, and lawmakers should provide alternative default rules (“menus”) more frequently and establish clear opt-out procedures (“altering rules”).