Personal Property
Personal Property, or Personalty, property that is generally movable, in contrast to real property, or realty, which is generally immovable. Personal property includes things that can be carried, or moved about by the owner, such as furniture, clothing, automobiles, recreation equipment, jewelry, and money. The list includes intangible (not concrete) rights, such as patents and copyrights, and sometimes inchoate (incomplete) rights, such as promissory notes. Personal property becomes real property if it is physically attached to the land or buildings; examples are fences, lumber, bricks, and lighting fixtures.
Legal rules as to ownership and transfer of personal property vary somewhat from those applying to real property. Most personal property can be easily sold and transferred; often the transfer of possession is all that is necessary. The transfer of realty, on the other hand, must be by written contract, or deed, and the transfer must be publicly recorded. If a person dies intestate (without a will) his or her personal property goes to the next of kin through what the law calls distribution; the title to the deceased's real property goes to an heir at law by descent.
The legal distinction between real and personal property developed under feudalism, when land was the basis of most wealth.