License
A revocable permission to use another's land; a personal privilege, not an interest in land.
The MBE fact pattern almost always hands you an oral or informal permission and then asks whether the user can be ejected. The tell: a grantor says “sure, run your pipe across my lot,” nothing is written, and the user later spends money. Your job is to choose between a freely revocable license and an irrevocable one by estoppel — the answer turns on whether the licensee made substantial expenditures in reasonable, foreseeable reliance. Watch the coupled-with-an-interest twist (e.g., permission to enter and remove timber or goods you own): that license is irrevocable for a reasonable time to remove the property.
The classic trap is upgrading a license into an easement. An ordinary license needs no Statute of Frauds writing, does not run with the land, and binds no successor — so a buyer of the burdened parcel can revoke at will, unlike a recorded easement or covenant. Note the split: estoppel often yields only an irrevocable license measured by the reliance (terminating once the investment is recouped), though many courts treat it as an easement by estoppel that does bind successors (Holbrook line) — so read the call carefully.
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