BLTE-10e Practice Quiz
Chapter 24:
Real Property and Environmental Law
1. When airplanes fly over your home, are your property rights violated?
a. No, never.
b. Normally, no, unless the flights are low and frequent.
c. Yes, because you own all the air above your home, into outer space.
d. Normally, no, based on your right to quiet use and enjoyment of the property.
ANS:
a. Incorrect. If the flights are low and frequent, they may violate your property rights.
b. Correct. Typically, large jets will fly too high to violate your property rights. If flights are low and frequent, however, they may violate your property rights.
c. Incorrect. You own this air space, with certain exceptions--such as the right of planes to fly overhead at a reasonable distance from the ground.
d. Incorrect. You do have a right of quiet use and enjoyment, and if flights are too low and frequent, they may violate this right.
2. A fee simple absolute is defined as:
a. An interest in land that exists only for the life of some person.
b. A future nonpossessory interest in real property.
c. An ownership interest that can be taken away upon the occurrence or nonoccurrence of a specified event.
d. An ownership interest in land in which the owner has the greatest possible aggregation of rights and privileges.
ANS:
a. Incorrect. This is not a fee simple absolute.
b. Incorrect. This is not a fee simple absolute.
c. Incorrect. When rights to ownership are limited in this way, you do not have a fee simple absolute.
d. Correct. A fee simple absolute is the greatest possible aggregation of rights, privileges, and power that an owner may possess.
3. If Betty gives her friend Roger the right to walk his Irish wolfhound across her property to the beach, what kind of property right does Roger acquire?
a. A life estate.
b. A possessory interest.
c. A profit.
d. An easement.
ANS:
a. Incorrect. This is not a life estate.
b. Incorrect. This is not a possessory interest because Roger does not possess the property.
c. Incorrect. This is not a profit.
d. Correct. This is an easement.
4. Which type of deed conveys the greatest number of things and provides a buyer with the greatest legal protection?
a. An executory deed.
b. A warranty deed.
c. A quitclaim deed.
d. A dead-man's deed.
ANS:
a. Incorrect. There are no executory deeds.
b. Correct. A warranty deed gives buyers the greatest protection because it conveys the greatest number of rights.
c. Incorrect. A quitclaim deed offers the least amount of protection to a buyer.
d. Incorrect. There is, legally speaking, nothing known as a "dead-man's deed."
5. Under what conditions may the U.S. government take your land?
a. For a private purpose and with just compensation.
b. For a public purpose and with just compensation.
c. Whenever it pays fair market value for the land.
d. For a public purpose, with just compensation and the landowner’s consent.
ANS:
a. Incorrect. The government may not take your land for a private purpose.
b. Correct. The government may take land for public use and with just compensation.
c. Incorrect. There must be a public use for government to take land; paying fair market value is not enough.
d. Incorrect. The landowner’s consent is not required.
6. An implied warranty that often applies to leased property is:
a. The implied warranty of merchantability.
b. The implied warranty of fitness for a particular purpose.
c. The implied warranty of habitability.
d. The implied warranty of title.
ANS:
a. Incorrect. This warranty does not apply to leased property.
b. Incorrect. This warranty does not apply to leased property.
c. Correct. This warranty often applies to leased property.
d. Incorrect. This warranty does not apply to leased property.
7. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires which of the following:
a. a definition of “mobile sources of pollution.”
b. that polluters use the best available technology to deal with water pollution.
c. that people receive permits from the Army Corps of Engineers before they fill or dredge wetlands.
d. that an environmental impact statement be prepared for any major federal action that significantly affects the quality of the environment.
Answers:
a. Incorrect. This is not a requirement of the NEPA.
b. Incorrect. This is not a requirement of the NEPA.
c. Incorrect. This is not a requirement of the NEPA.
d. Correct. Under the NEPA, an environmental impact statement must be prepared for any major federal action that significantly affects the quality of the environment.
8. Those who violate the Clean Air Act may be subject to:
a. civil penalties only.
b. civil and criminal penalties.
c. environmental community service.
d. the penalties prescribed by FIFRA.
Answers:
a. Incorrect. Violators of the act may be subject to civil and criminal penalties.
b. Correct. Violators of the act may be subject to civil and criminal penalties.
c. Incorrect. There is no such thing as “environmental community service.”
d. Incorrect. FIFRA deals with fungicides, insecticides, and rodenticides. It does not prescribe penalties for violations of the Clean Air Act.
9. The federal legislation governing the clean-up of leaking hazardous waste disposal sites is:
a. FIFRA.
b. the Toxic Substances Control Act.
c. the Clean Water Act.
d. CERCLA, or Superfund.
Answers:
a. Incorrect. This legislation deals with fungicides, insecticides, and rodenticides.
b. Incorrect. This legislation deals with toxic chemicals.
c. Incorrect. This legislation deals with water quality.
d. Correct. This is the federal legislation that deals with disposal sites in which hazardous waste is leaking into the environment.
10. Joint and several liability under CERCLA means that:
a. all parties who contributed in any way to the problem are liable jointly but not individually.
b. liability for clean-up costs under CERCLA can never be imposed on more than one person.
c. all “potentially responsible parties” may be liable jointly or individually for clean-up costs.
d. liability under CERCLA can never be imposed on just one party when several parties contributed to the problem.
Answers:
a. Incorrect. Such parties may be liable individually as well. In other words, a person who generated only a fraction of the hazardous waste disposed of at the site may be liable for all of the clean-up costs.
b. Incorrect. Liability under CERCLA may be imposed on one, some, or all of the “potentially responsible parties.”
c. Correct. Joint liability under CERCLA means that all or some of the “potentially responsible parties” may be held liable jointly for clean-up costs. Several liability means that even a person who generated only a fraction of the hazardous waste disposed of at the site may nonetheless be liable for all of the clean-up costs.
d. Incorrect. Even a person who generated only a fraction of the hazardous waste disposed of at the site may nonetheless be liable for all of the clean-up costs.