daf bit: Bava Batra 69

[cellio]

Continuing the theme of what is and isn't included in property sales, today's daf discusses fields and trees. A mishna on the previous daf says that when a man sells a field the sale automatically includes young carob and sycamore trees but not mature ones. In the g'mara Rabbi Yehudah said: when a man sells a field he should write in the deed "acquire hereby the date trees, other large trees, small trees, and small date trees", and goes on to explain the consequences of being imprecise. For example: if he says "I sell you the land with the date trees" and there are no date trees on the land, he has misrepresented the sale and that's fraud. On the other hand, if he says "I sell you land and date trees", then if he has any date trees he must transfer two -- but if he doesn't, he must buy two date trees so he can transfer them. (69b)

(I don't know what's special about date, carob, and sycamore trees that they are at various points called out.)

Comments

[dsrtao]

Modern land sales also require precise descriptions of borders, and usually contain a phrase like "and all the contents of the property" and "and all rights and privileges thereunto appended". I'm interested in what happens if the seller fails to mention the mature trees on a field -- does he retain ownership of the trees without the land? Does he have access rights to harvest them?

[cellio]

It appears that you can end up owning a tree but not the land it sits on (except I think you own the land immediately under the tree, what it draws its nourishment from). If you own the tree you own its produce.

There is a lot of discussion in this tractate about rights of way, and I don't understand all of it. A discussion on 64b suggests to me that when someone owns trees on another's land, it's ok to cross his land to get to your tree, because the owner has no expectation of privacy. (Unlike the case where you sell a room in a house, where the buyer doesn't get to go through.) I think it's pretty clear that we're talking about fields for production and not, say, selling a tree in your courtyard.