Property Insights

Analysis and practical guides on property.

20 articles, checklists, and guides on property law, written by the attorneys at MC Law. Every piece is general information, not legal advice — for a specific matter, contact the firm.

PropertyWater Law

Water Rights Toolkit: Applications, Transfers, Adjudications, and Enforcement

This toolkit assembles the working documents of a water rights matter: a water right abstract and due diligence request, purchase agreement and deed language, a new appropriation application outline with proof of beneficial use, an annual use log and forfeiture defense memorandum, a change application outline with an engineer engagement scope, a protest letter, a curtailment response and futile call demand, a dry-year lease term sheet, an augmentation plan outline, adjudication statement of claim and objection outlines, a district records request, and a pre-application meeting agenda for physical permitting.

Casey Scott McKayFebruary 20, 202613 min read

PropertyWater Law

Water Right and Permitting Checklist: A Practical Checklist

This checklist covers water rights from purchase diligence through adjudication. It runs the five threshold questions that identify which system you are in, the diligence sequence for buying land with water, the application and perfection steps for a new appropriation, the annual documentation habit that defeats forfeiture, the transfer sequence built around historical consumptive use, the protest and curtailment responses with their short deadlines, the general adjudication steps including the statement of claim deadline that can extinguish a right, and the separate physical permitting required for work in a waterway.

Casey Scott McKayFebruary 13, 20267 min read

PropertyWater Law

Securing and Defending a Water Right: A Practical Guide

This guide is the operating sequence for anyone who owns, is buying, or wants to create a water right. It covers the due diligence that prevents the most common and most expensive mistake in rural real estate, how to apply for and perfect a new appropriation, the annual documentation habit that defeats forfeiture, how to run a change or transfer application including the historical consumptive use analysis that decides it, what to do when a curtailment order arrives, how to file a statement of claim in a general adjudication, and how to handle a district or ditch company relationship that may matter more than the underlying right.

Casey Scott McKayFebruary 9, 202628 min read

PropertyWater Law

Water Rights: Prior Appropriation, Riparian Doctrine, Groundwater, and Federal Reserved Rights

Water law is two systems, a set of federal overlays, and a growing crisis, and which system applies depends on which side of roughly the hundredth meridian you are standing on. This article explains riparian rights and the reasonable use standard in the East, prior appropriation and the priority system in the West, how a right is created, maintained, lost, and transferred under each, the separate and often incoherent treatment of groundwater, federal reserved rights under the Winters doctrine and the Indian water rights settlements that implement them, interstate allocation by compact and equitable apportionment, general stream adjudications, and where Clean Water Act permitting intersects with all of it.

Casey Scott McKayFebruary 2, 202629 min read

PropertyArt Law

Art Law Toolkit: Consignment Agreements, Provenance Research, and Claims

This toolkit assembles the working documents of an art matter: a provenance worksheet and database search log, bill of sale warranty language, a condition report template, a pre-auction question letter, consignment agreement terms with a gallery insolvency demand, commission agreement and moral rights clauses, the statutory artist notification letter for building-incorporated work, loan agreement terms and an insurance schedule, demand letters for stolen art and responses to a restitution claim, a forgery rescission demand, an estate art inventory, and dealer conflict disclosure language.

Casey Scott McKayJanuary 26, 202615 min read

PropertyArt Law

Art Transaction and Provenance Checklist: A Practical Checklist

This checklist runs an art matter from diligence through claim. It covers the provenance research sequence and the gaps that require resolution rather than explanation, the warranties a bill of sale must contain, what to read in auction conditions of sale before bidding, the consignment terms that determine whether an artist recovers work from a failed gallery, the moral rights sequence a building owner must follow before renovation, insurance and shipping practices, loan agreement terms, and the response sequences for a stolen art claim, a forgery, and an estate.

Casey Scott McKayJanuary 19, 20268 min read

PropertyArt Law

Buying, Selling, and Protecting Art: A Practical Guide

This guide is the working sequence for anyone buying, selling, commissioning, lending, or inheriting art. It covers the diligence a buyer must actually do and document, how to read auction terms of sale and what the limited authenticity warranty really provides, the consignment agreement that determines whether an artist recovers work from a failed gallery, the moral rights questions a building owner and a commissioning client must address before installation rather than after, insurance and shipping practices that prevent most real-world losses, what to do when a work turns out to be stolen or fake, and how to plan a collection into an estate.

Casey Scott McKayJanuary 12, 202629 min read

PropertyArt Law

Art Law and Cultural Property: Title, Provenance, Moral Rights, and Repatriation

Art law is a collision of ordinary commercial law with objects that are unique, portable, easily faked, frequently stolen, and sometimes sacred. This article explains why a thief cannot pass title and what that means for a museum holding a work for eighty years, how limitations and laches actually resolve stolen art claims, the special regime for Nazi-era looted art and the sovereign immunity exception that reaches foreign museums, the moral rights of attribution and integrity that survive the sale of a work and constrain the owner of a building, authentication and forgery disputes and why experts stopped opining, consignment and auction practice, and the criminal and repatriation regimes governing cultural property and Native American remains.

Casey Scott McKayJanuary 5, 202628 min read