Property Law Definitions

Real Property

This is land and ordinarily anything erected on, growing on, or affixed to it, including buildings and vegetation.

Personal Property

It is anything other than land that can be the subject of ownership, including stocks, money, notes, patents , and copyrights, as well as other intangible property.  This describes something which a person or corporation can have ownership of and can transfer ownership of to another person or corporation, but has no physical existence.

Actual possession exists when an individual knowingly has direct physical control over an object at a given time. For example, an individual wearing a particular piece of valuable jewelry has actual possession of it. Constructive possession is the power and intent of an individual to control a particular item, even though it is not physically in that person's control. For example, an individual who has the key to a bank safe deposit box, which contains a valuable piece of jewelry that he or she owns, is said to be in constructive possession of the jewelry.

If you feel like someone has taken anything that is rightfully your without your consent, than you need to be able to prove that you are the originator of the property and you can do this in many ways such as:

1. Receipts
2. Original manuscripts
3. Deeds or
4. Witnesses if the above items are not available

Once you establish ownership you will need legal services to regain what is rightfully yours.  Unfortunately this is one are where in a lot of the cases the person that accused of theft gets rid of the belongings once law enforcement starts an investigation.  It is important to act quickly in these cases so that you do not give the offender enough time to transfer the belongings to someone else.