Missouri Real Estate Broker Exam — All Questions
4 questions
A commercial tenant bolts custom display shelving to the walls to run a retail store. Absent any agreement to the contrary, what is the usual character of that shelving?
- a.A permanent fixture that automatically belongs to the landlord
- b.Real property that must be conveyed with the building
- c.A trade fixture the tenant may remove before the lease ends✓
- d.An easement appurtenant to the leased space
Items a commercial tenant installs to conduct business are trade fixtures. Even though they are attached, the law lets the tenant remove them before the lease ends (repairing any damage), because the tenant's intent was to use them in the business, not to improve the landlord's property permanently. This is an exception to the general rule that attached items become part of the realty. It is not an easement, which is a right to use another's land, not an object.
Three investors want to take title so that each owner's share will pass to that owner's own heirs at death, and the shares may be unequal. Which form of co-ownership fits?
- a.Joint tenancy
- b.Tenancy in common✓
- c.Tenancy by the entirety
- d.Community property
Tenancy in common allows undivided interests that may be unequal and, critically, has no right of survivorship, so each co-owner's share passes to that owner's heirs or devisees. Joint tenancy carries survivorship, so a deceased owner's share goes to the survivors, not to heirs. Tenancy by the entirety is limited to married couples and also has survivorship. Community property is a marital regime, not a fit for three unrelated investors.
For a valid joint tenancy to exist, the co-owners must share the four unities. Which set correctly lists them?
- a.Time, title, interest, and possession✓
- b.Time, title, income, and partition
- c.Possession, profit, survivorship, and consent
- d.Interest, income, delivery, and acceptance
Joint tenancy requires the four unities, remembered as PITT: Possession (each holds an undivided right to the whole), Interest (equal shares), Time (all acquired title at the same moment), and Title (all named in the same instrument). If any unity is broken, for example by one owner conveying a share, that share becomes a tenancy in common. The other options mix in terms like income, profit, or survivorship that are not part of the four unities.
An owner grants a neighbor a life estate in a parcel 'for the life of the neighbor.' When the neighbor dies, the deed names no one to take next. What happens to the property?
- a.It escheats to the state
- b.It passes to the neighbor's heirs
- c.It becomes a tenancy in common
- d.It reverts to the original grantor or the grantor's heirs✓
A life estate lasts only for the measuring life and cannot be inherited. When no remainderman is named to receive the property afterward, the grantor has kept a reversion, so title returns to the grantor (or the grantor's heirs if the grantor has died). Escheat happens only when an owner dies with no heirs and no will, which is not the situation here. The life tenant's heirs take nothing because the estate ended at death.