Rights of Property Owners
Overview from http://consortiuminfo.org/bulletins/may07.php
Rights of property owners: At the most basic level of analysis, determining the parameters of property rights involves making a number of determinations, including the following (focusing primarily on rights in real property):
• Who is the owner?
Corporate ownership is a comparatively recent legal innovation, while communal, state and individual ownership are ancient. More recently, the concept of ownership by no one if not by everyone has been recognized. For example, the oceans, other planets, space and Antarctica have all been designated by treaties and conventions as being areas where the signatory nations have agreed that national ownership cannot be asserted (or where such rights have been limited) and where various types of activities are prohibited.
• How long can ownership be maintained?
Ownership of real property can be perpetual, subject to taking by the state for public purposes under applicable eminent domain laws. Other types of property, such as intangibles, have other rules: the copyright in a work under current law is sustainable for the life of the creator plus a designated number of years, after which it passes into the public domain, and patents can be enforced for a shorter period of time. But a trademark can be owned in perpetuity.
• What can the owner do with the property?
At the highest level, property rights include the right of possession and the right of transfer. As a practical matter, the starting proposition is generally that an owner can do anything with its property that is not prohibited by law or restricted by a right granted to a third party, and can transfer that property to anyone at any time.
• What can an owner not do with its property?
Rights in property can be restricted through various means. Zoning laws restrict the uses to which land can be put, easements can be granted to third parties that convey rights that may (for example) restrict development, permit utilities or access routes to be placed across the property, and to grant exclusive rights to extract specified, or all, minerals. In each case, although the owner remains entitled to freely transfer the property in question, these restrictions will "run with the property," and bind successor owners to the property, so long as appropriate easements have been properly recorded in real property registries. Government imposed restrictions, such as zoning laws, burning bans, and watering restrictions require no such recordation.
• Who has the power to restrict a property owners rights?
There are three types of parties traditionally entitled to affect a real property owner's exercise of its rights: governments (national, state and local), third parties to whom the owner has granted rights of use or enforcement, and abutting or nearby neighbors that bring claims under laws protecting them from "nuisances" or other abuses occurring on the land of another that affect the use, value or enjoyment of their own property.
• What are the limits, if any, on those restrictions?
Property rights are precious, and are often protected not only by statute, but also by national constitutions that impose limits on the degree to which even governments can restrict them. For example, the 5th Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that: "No person shall be... deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation," a limitation extended to the several states through the 14th Amendment, which provides that: "No State shall... deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law... " (http://consortiuminfo.org/bulletins/may07.php)