Also known as: immovable property · immoveable properties · immovable properties
Written by attorneys — see sources 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.
An Oregon resident died intestate in 1962, leaving an estate that included both real and personal property. The decedent's sole heirs, who resided in East Germany, sought to inherit under Oregon probate proceedings. Members of the Oregon State Land Board petitioned the probate court for escheat of the net proceeds of the estate under Oregon Revised Statutes § 111.070. The statute conditioned a nonresident alien's right to inherit on proof of three requirements. One requirement was the existence of a reciprocal right of United States citizens to take property on the same terms as citizens or inhabitants of the foreign country. Another was the right of United States citizens to receive payment within the United States of funds originating from estates in the foreign country. A third was the right of the foreign heirs to receive the proceeds without confiscation in whole or in part by the foreign government. The burden rested on the nonresident alien to establish these facts. The provision concerning confiscation had been added to the statute in 1951, expanding upon earlier general reciprocity language. The Oregon Supreme Court held that Article IV of the 1923 Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Consular Rights with Germany permitted the East German heirs to take the real property but, following Clark v. Allen, did not permit them to take the personal property. The United States Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction. In applying the statute in this and related cases, Oregon courts examined the credibility of diplomatic statements from communist-controlled countries, the discretion exercised by foreign banking authorities in issuing licenses for fund transfers, and the political structures under which foreign inheritance laws operated. The Department of Justice appeared as amicus curiae and stated that it did not contend the application of the statute in this case unduly interfered with the United States' conduct of foreign relations.
View caseImmovable 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…