Also known as: immovable property · immoveable properties · immovable properties
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
Property whose location cannot be changed. It encompasses land and all interests in land, including easements and leaseholds.
Isaac Irving managed a cooperative farm. Without board approval he executed and recorded a deed conveying a strip of the farm's acreage to a neighboring agribusiness in exchange for cancellation of his personal debt. The transfer satisfied the statutory definition of theft because it unlawfully moved an interest in immovable property to benefit a party not entitled to it.
Idris Ives died owning farmland in Oregon. His foreign heirs claimed the land under their national law while state officials invoked an escheat statute. Classification of the farmland as immovable property required application of the law of the situs rather than the law of the decedent's domicile.
Select any source to read its text and confirm it supports the definition.
Immovable property consists of land and interests in land. Movable property includes all other items whose location can be changed, even if growing on or affixed to land. The distinction determines which theft provision applies to a given taking or transfer.
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Yes. An easement is a nonpossessory interest in land. Granting an easement without authority therefore constitutes an unlawful transfer of an interest in immovable property when done with the required purpose to benefit an unentitled person.
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Yes. A long-term lease is an interest in land. Transferring such a lease without authorization to benefit oneself or another not entitled to it satisfies the elements of theft of immovable property.
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Traditional larceny focused on taking movable items. The separate provision covers unauthorized conveyances of land interests that cannot be physically carried away, ensuring that deeds, easements, and similar transfers fall within the crime when the purpose element is met.
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…due. II Article IV of the 1923 treaty with Germany provides: "Where, on the death of any person holding real or other immovable property or interests therein within the territories of one High Contracting Party, such property or interests therein would, by the laws of the country or by a testamentary disposition, descend or…