Ask any law student which two corners of Property they'd delete from the universe and you'll get the same answer twice: future interests — the contingent-remainder-in-a-class-gift machinery — and mortgages, with its title, lien and intermediate theories and its foreclosure priority waterfalls.
On the NextGen exam, those are the two unstarred topics.
That is not permission to skip them. But it is a very strong signal about where your memorisation hours belong, and it runs directly against how most Property outlines allocate their pages.
The starred map: eight of ten
NCBE's Content Scope Outline marks each topic starred or unstarred. Starred means no resources provided and full recall expected. Unstarred means one of two lighter modes — recognise the issue, or read the governing law from a provided excerpt and apply it.
Real Property comes out 8 of 10 starred in our scope-aligned breakdown: recall-heavy, and the most vocabulary-dense subject on the exam.
Starred:
| Topic | Territory |
|---|---|
| Cotenancy | Joint tenancy and the four unities, tenancy in common, severance, partition, cotenant relations |
| Landlord–tenant | The four leasehold estates, rent, actual and constructive eviction, assignment and sublease, habitability |
| Fair housing | Discriminatory restraints, the Fair Housing Act, retaliatory eviction, reasonable accommodations |
| Easements & licenses | Types, creation by grant, implication, necessity, prescription and estoppel; scope; termination |
| Covenants & servitudes | Intent, notice, touch and concern, horizontal and vertical privity, common schemes, termination |
| Real estate contracts | Statute of frauds and its exceptions, essential terms, marketable title, remedies |
| Adverse possession & deeds | Elements, the statutory period, tacking; valid deeds, delivery, deed types and title covenants |
| Recording & title | Notice, race and race-notice statutes, indexes, chain of title, forged deeds |
Unstarred:
- Present estates & future interests
- Mortgages & foreclosure
Two things worth pausing on.
Fair housing is starred. That's a modern, statutory topic most legacy Property outlines cover in a couple of pages, if at all — and it sits on the full-recall list alongside easements and recording acts. If your materials treat it as an afterthought, that's a scoped gap on the wrong side of the line.
On the rule against perpetuities: our NCBE-scope-aligned curriculum scopes the future-interests topic without RAP — restraints on alienation are in, the rule against perpetuities is not. The detail lives in NCBE's Content Scope PDF rather than its web summary, so treat this as our reading of the scope and confirm it on the outline itself before you either celebrate or revise. What is not in doubt is that the whole topic is unstarred, which already means it isn't full-recall territory.
Why the starred eight are the ones that pay
There's a pattern in what got starred here, and it's worth seeing: the starred topics are the ones a practising lawyer resolves from knowledge, and the unstarred two are the ones anyone would look up.
Nobody drafts around the rule against perpetuities from memory. Nobody works out foreclosure priorities without the documents in front of them. But whether a lease was assigned or sublet, whether an easement survived the sale of the servient estate, whether the second purchaser takes free of the first interest under a race-notice statute — those are the daily judgments the exam's applied formats are built to test, and they are exactly what got starred.
Which means the deck for this subject is: easement creation, covenant enforceability, recording priority, adverse possession, the leasehold rules, and the cotenancy unities. Vocabulary-heavy, distinction-driven, and ideal flashcard material.
Five traps the exam sets on repeat
- Recording acts: which statute, and who is protected. A notice jurisdiction, a race jurisdiction and a race-notice jurisdiction produce three different winners from the same facts, and the question always tells you which one you're in — usually in one clause you can skim past. Then the protected class matters: a subsequent purchaser for value generally qualifies, a donee generally doesn't. And a forged deed conveys nothing no matter how promptly it's recorded, which defeats every priority answer built on the recording sequence.
- Easement creation, where each route has its own elements. Express grant or reservation, implication from prior use, implication from necessity, prescription, estoppel. The two implication routes are the ones distractors blur: prior use needs an apparent, continuous pre-severance use, while necessity needs genuine landlocking and nothing less. Then scope and termination are separate questions — an easement can exist and still not authorise what the holder is doing.
- Covenants versus equitable servitudes, and the privity trap. Both need intent, notice and touch-and-concern. The difference is the remedy: a real covenant enforceable at law for damages requires horizontal and vertical privity, while an equitable servitude enforceable in equity by injunction does not. Answer choices routinely deny an injunction for want of privity, which is a nearly-right sentence about the wrong remedy.
- Assignment versus sublease, and constructive eviction's hard requirement. An assignment transfers the entire remaining term and puts the assignee in privity of estate with the landlord; a sublease doesn't, and the original tenant stays liable either way absent a release. Separately, constructive eviction requires the tenant to actually vacate — a tenant who stays in possession complaining about conditions has a habitability argument, not a constructive-eviction one.
- Adverse possession: every element, for the whole period. Actual, open and notorious, hostile, exclusive, continuous — and continuous for the full statutory term, where tacking between successive possessors requires privity between them. The trap is a fact pattern satisfying four elements beautifully and quietly failing the fifth, or a gap in possession that resets a clock the answer choices assume kept running.
Two more worth a mention: severance of a joint tenancy destroys the unities and converts the interest to a tenancy in common — a favourite because the conveyance that causes it can be buried in a will or a mortgage — and marketable title in a real estate contract is a distinct concept from a deed's covenants of title.
How to drill it for this exam
This is the flashcard subject. Eight starred topics, all vocabulary- and distinction-driven: the four unities, the easement creation routes, the covenant elements, the three recording-act types, the adverse-possession elements, the four leasehold estates. If you build one deck properly this cycle, build this one — spaced repetition is unusually well matched to it.
Practise reading the instrument, not the summary. Property is the subject where integrated question sets and performance tasks most naturally put a document in front of you — a deed, a lease clause, a recorded covenant. Deciding whether a clause creates an easement appurtenant or a licence, from the words on the page, is a different skill from recognising the doctrine in a narrative stem.
Interleave priority problems. Recording, easements and covenants converge in the same fact patterns constantly. Sets that shuffle them at the real 1.8-minute pace train the classification speed the exam measures.
Give the unstarred two one honest pass. Learn the shape of present estates, future interests and mortgages — enough to name what you're looking at. If the governing rule arrives as provided text, the skill is reading it accurately under a clock, not reciting it. That's where your time on these belongs.
The materials, honestly
NCBE's content scope outline (free). The authoritative topic list, and in this subject the document to actually read rather than skim — the starring here reallocates study time significantly.
NCBE's subject Sourcebook. A reference statement of in-scope doctrine from the people who write the exam; no practice in the real item types, and frequently free through law school libraries. Check yours first.
Our Real Property volume ($9.99). Volume 7 of the series: 10 topics across 657 pages, 311 practice questions in the real NextGen formats with full explanations, and a 454-card flashcard appendix keyed to the starred topics — cotenancy through recording and title, mapped to the NCBE scope with nothing outside it. The sample chapter is free, EPUB and PDF, no account, and worth reading first since ebook sales are final.
Drilling on the platform ($99 lifetime). The same content as a live question bank with analytics by topic — which is how you learn whether Property is your problem or whether recording priority specifically is where the points go.
The bottom line
Real Property is a recall-heavy, vocabulary-dense subject where the starring is unusually well aimed: the eight starred topics are the judgments a lawyer makes from knowledge — easements, covenants, recording priority, adverse possession, leaseholds, cotenancy, real estate contracts, and fair housing. The two unstarred ones are future interests and mortgages, the two things everybody looks up anyway.
Build the deck on the starred eight, give the other two a shape pass, and check the plan against yourself rather than another outline: the free sample chapter, or ten diagnostic questions at the real pace.
Frequently asked questions
- How many Real Property topics are starred on the NextGen bar exam?
- Eight of ten in our NCBE-scope-aligned breakdown, making it recall-heavy and the most vocabulary-dense subject on the exam. The starred topics are cotenancy, landlord–tenant, fair housing, easements and licences, covenants and servitudes, real estate contracts, adverse possession and deeds, and recording and title. The two unstarred topics are present estates and future interests, and mortgages and foreclosure.
- Is the rule against perpetuities tested on the NextGen bar exam?
- Our NCBE-scope-aligned curriculum scopes the future-interests topic without the rule against perpetuities — restraints on alienation are covered, RAP is not. That detail lives in NCBE’s Content Scope PDF rather than its web summary, so confirm it against the outline itself before relying on it. What is clear either way is that the entire present-estates-and-future-interests topic is unstarred, so it is not full-recall territory regardless.
- Why is fair housing starred when most outlines barely cover it?
- Because the NextGen scope treats it as core: discriminatory restraints, discrimination in the sale and lease of property under the Fourteenth Amendment and the Fair Housing Act, retaliatory eviction, racially restrictive covenants, and reasonable accommodations for tenants with disabilities. It sits on the full-recall list alongside easements and the recording acts. If your materials give it a couple of pages, that is a scoped gap on the wrong side of the starred line.
- What is the difference between a real covenant and an equitable servitude on an exam question?
- The remedy, and therefore the privity requirement. Both need intent, notice and touch-and-concern. A real covenant enforceable at law for damages requires horizontal and vertical privity; an equitable servitude enforceable in equity by injunction does not. Answer choices frequently deny an injunction for lack of privity, which is a correct statement about the wrong remedy — exactly the kind of nearly-right option select-two items are built from.
- What do candidates most often get wrong on recording-act questions?
- Two things. First, applying the wrong statute: notice, race, and race-notice jurisdictions produce three different winners from identical facts, and the question usually identifies which one applies in a single clause that is easy to skim past. Second, forgetting that a forged deed conveys nothing regardless of how promptly it was recorded, which defeats any priority answer built purely on recording sequence. Whether the taker gave value also matters, since a donee generally is not protected.