Abandonment

[palani]

From Bouvier ... Legal rights, when once vested, must be divested
according to law, but equitable rights may be abandoned.

Walk away from something you have equitable rights to and consider it GONE.

Walk away from something you have vested rights in and you must make an act of divesting that thing.

TO VEST, estates. To give an immediate fixed right of present
or future enjoyment; an estate is vested in possession when
there exists a right of present enjoyment; and an estate is
vested in interest, when there is a present fixed right of
future, enjoyment.

In other words you might abandon something and lose all equitable rights to that thing but if you happen to have vested rights you must perform some action of divesting yourself.

Proponents of the EQUITABLE SYSTEM beware. You might own quite a bit less than you think you own. Then again, for those who have ever abandoned something, you might still have vested rights to that thing.

[palani]

Do a keyword search using 'ABANDONED' on the Iowa Legal Notice site.

http://iapublicnotices.newzgroup.com/

Probably 500 hits over a 6 month period.

Now do a keyword search for 'DIVEST'. Two hits in 6 months. In one case P&G is DIVESTING duracell brand and in the other the Dollar General is DIVESTING 1,500 stores.

Seems the legal world is mainly concerned with EQUITABLE abandonment of rights.

[palani]

Courts of equity are going to assume that your right are all equitable. You reinforce this concept when you say you have equity in a property. You might also have vested rights under principles of law as well. These might be from inheritance or simply through long possession. At common law abandoned property is a nuisance to be abated so at law when you find abandoned property you seize it and place a legal notice for the owner to recover as soon as he/she has paid costs.

So can equitable rights to a thing be abandoned and yet vested rights remain intact? It would be hard to abandon a thing (a car or a home) and yet claim long possession. I suspect when you abandon any sort of property that you came by with possession that your vestment at law continues. After all, you abandoned it. Yet when you go to town shopping for a day you abandon your house. You are no longer in possession of that house while you are gone. Perhaps if you abandoned it for several months and the yard got all overgrown with weeds and the neighbors started complaining the situation could be interpreted that you abandoned it and someone might step in to mow your grass and fix your roof and even pay your property taxes. When you return after all these things have been done you are back in equity again and owe the one who helped you out some form of compensation.

When you sell a property are you abandoning your equity in it only? Or are you abandoning your vested rights as well?

How about when you don't sell the property but instead convey it to some form of a holding trust? Are you passing along only your equity and retaining vested rights or does the holding trust have both? Using this method does continued possession of the property that was conveyed keep alive vested rights or establish new equitable rights?

When the county seizes a property for back taxes are they taking your equity? When the county evicts you do so in equity or at law? Do you retain vested rights? Certainly such an event breaks the chain of title from the land patent to the present day. The one who purchases the tax lien paper at an auction after several years can claim possession but does this give him vested rights at law?



EVICTION. The loss or deprivation which the possessor of a
thing suffers, either in whole or in part, of his right of
property in such a thing, in consequence of the right of a third
person established before a compenent tribunal.