Balloon Payment: An installment payment on a promissory note, usually the final one for discharging the debt, which is significantly larger than the other installment payments provided under the terms of the promissory note.
Bargain and Sale Deed: Any deed that recites a consideration and purports to convey the real estate; a bargain and sale deed with a covenant against the grantor’s act is one in which the grantor warrants that grantor has done nothing to harm or cloud the title.
Beneficiary: (1) One entitled to the benefit of a trust; (2) One who receives profit from an estate, the title of which is vested in a trustee; (3) The lender on the security of a note and deed of trust.
Bill of Sale: A written instrument given to pass title of personal property from vendor to the vendee.
Blanket Mortgage: A single mortgage which covers more than one piece of real property.
Bond: Written evidence of an obligation given by a corporation or government entity. A surety instrument.
Business Opportunity: The assets for an existing business enterprise including its goodwill. As used in the Real Estate Law, the term includes “the sale or lease of the business and goodwill of an existing business enterprise or opportunity.”
Bylaws: Rules for the conduct of the internal affairs of corporations and other organizations.
CC&Rs: Covenants, conditions and restrictions. The basic rules establishing the rights and obligations of the owners (and their successors in interest)
Caveat Emptor: Let the buyer beware. The buyer must examine the goods or property and buy at his or her own risk, absent misrepresentation.
Chain of Title: A history of conveyances and encumbrances affecting the title from the time the original patent was granted, or as far back as records are available, used to determine how title came to be vested in current owner.
Closing: (1) Process by which all the parties to a real estate transaction conclude the details of a sale or mortgage. The process includes the signing and transfer of documents and distribution of funds. (2) Condition in description of real property by courses and distances at the boundary lines where the lines meet to include all the tract of land.
Cloud on Title: A claim, encumbrance or condition which impairs the title to real property until disproved or eliminated as for example through a quitclaim deed or a quiet title legal action.
Community Property: Property acquired by husband and/or wife during a marriage when not acquired as the separate property of either spouse Each spouse has equal rights of management, alienation and testamentary disposition of community property.
Conditional Sale Contract: A contract for the sale of property staffing that delivery is to be made to the buyer, title to remain vested in the seller until the conditions of the contract have been fulfilled. (See definition of Security Interest.)
Conveyance: An instrument in writing used to transfer (convey) title to property from one person to another, such as a deed or a trust deed.
Covenant: An agreement or promise to do or not to do a particular act such as a promise to build a house of a particular architectural style or to use or not to use property in a certain way.