PERSONAL PROPERTY. Things personal are divided into chattels, chattels real, and chores in action. Chattels comprehend all movable material objects not affixed to the soil. When attached to the soil so as to become a part of it, a chattel is converted into a fixture. See FixTenn. A chattel real is an interest annexed or relat ing, to real estate, as a lease for years. The treatment of chattels real belongs to the law of real property, and they resemble personal property only in this respect, that upon the lessee's death the residue of his term goes to his executor or administrator, and not to the heirs. Any interest in real estate, whose continuance is limited to a certain period. i.e., which is less than a freehold, is a chattel real. Choses (things) in action are rights not enforceable without bringing action to recover a debt. or money or damages for breach of contract or for the commission of a tort connected with a contract. Properly speaking, these were not a species of property, but a right whose enforcement will give the holder a property right. The main legal distinction between real and personal property is that the latter, on the death of its owner, goes to his personal representa tives instead of his heirs. Anciently, personal property of a deceased intestate went to
the king; and afterwards the bishops succeeded to it, holding it absolutely, hut being supposed to apply it to pions uses. The statute 13 Edward I., c. 19, ordered the ment by the bishops of the debts of intestates, and the statute 31 Edward III_ c. 11, took the right of administration from the bishops and gave it henceforth to " the next and lawful friend of the deceased person intestate," whose appointment was made obi gatory on the bishops, Up to the time of the statute of distributions (22 and 23 Charles II. c. 10), the administrator. after paying the debts, was allowed to keep the balance as his own, The statute of distributions compelled the distribution by the administrator of the surplus, under the court's order, among the next of kin, in a definite order. The. statute of distrihntions, in all its main provisions, had been adopted by most of the states. Tithe to personal property is acquired by occupancy; by transfer by act of the party, as a sale; by transfer by act of the law, as by judgment; by accession, and by prescription.