REAL is a phrase much used in the law of the United Kingdom in combination with various other terms. In the law of England and Ireland real property or real estate, or realty, constitutes one of the great subdivisions of all property, consisting of what is popularly known as land and houses, which are not legal terms; personal property, or personalty, includes all the other kinds of property, as goods and chattels, money, etc. The same or a similar distinction pervades the laws of all countries. In the Roman law things were divided into movable and immovable. In the law of Scotland the division is into heritable and movable. The division into realty and personalty comes into opera tion in the event of the death of an owner of property, especially when lie dies intestate, in which case his realty goes to the heir-at-law, and the personalty to his administrators or executors. See SUCCESSION. A division also exists in England of actions into real and personal actions, the object of the former being real property, and of the latter to recover damages, or the possession of personal property; while there is also a class of actions called mixed actions, which partake of the nature of both. With regard to
chattels there is also a subdivision into real chattels and personal chattels, the former consisting of contracts and interests affecting real estate, such as leases and mortgages, while personal chattels include corporeal movables. Then there is a division of assets into real assets and personal assets, the former being the real estate, so far as it can be made according to the rules of law liable for the debts of the deceased. In Scotland the word is also frequently used technically, though not in the same sense as in England. Thus, real actions in Scotland mean actions the object of which is to recover possession of the property itself, whether heritable or movable, and a real right is a right to the property itself in a like sense. A real burden, in the law of Scotland, means the right to a sum of money, or other obligation, so secured on land that the land cannot be sold or alienated except as subject to the burden, and until the burden is discharged.