Also known as: immovables · immovable property
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
Property that cannot be moved, including land and things so firmly attached to land that they are regarded as part of it. The term distinguishes such property from movable property whose location can be changed.
Iris Irons, manager of a farming cooperative, executed and recorded a deed conveying a strip of the co-op's acreage to a buyer to settle her personal debt. The transfer was unauthorized and done to benefit Iris. Prosecutors charged her with theft because the statute covers unlawful transfers of immovable property with purpose to benefit oneself or an unentitled party.
India Inoue purchased land in State B from a seller domiciled in State A under a contract selecting State A law. A third party later claimed a prescriptive easement based on long use in State B. The court applied the law of State B, the situs of the immovable, to resolve the easement issue.
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Ines Ibarra sued in State A over title to land located in State B. The State A court applied the full law of State B, including its choice-of-law rules, to decide the ownership dispute. This ensured the result matched what a State B court would reach on the same facts.
Iain Irving claimed rights to real estate in State X under a federal common law theory. The court held that rights and titles to immovable property are governed by the positive local law of the state where the land is situated rather than general federal rules.
Isaac Irving litigated ownership of land under a claim that general common law should control. The court rejected the claim and applied the local statutes and decisions of the state where the immovable was located.
Ivy Investments held immovable property in the United States. A state statute restricted inheritance by foreign nationals. The Court examined whether the treaty provision allowing time to sell the immovable controlled over the state restriction.
No. The offense is complete upon an unauthorized transfer of title or an interest in the immovable, such as by deed or easement grant, when done with purpose to benefit oneself or an unentitled party.
Supporting sources
Movable property is defined as property whose location can be changed. Immovable property is all other property, including land and interests in land such as easements.
Supporting sources
The law of the state where the immovable is situated, including that state's choice-of-law rules, determines interests in the land so that the forum reaches the same result a court of the situs would reach.
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…and to rights and titles to things having a permanent locality, such as the rights and titles to real estate, and other matters immovable and intraterritorial in their nature and character. It never has been supposed by us, that the section did apply, or was intended to apply, to questions of a more general nature, not at all…