ONERA REALIA

onera realia (on-<<schwa>>r-<<schwa>> ree-ay-lee-<<schwa>>). [Law Latin] Scots law. Real burdens.

“Onera realia … are burdens or encumbrances affecting land, and exigible from it. They are distinguished from personal burdens, which only affect and are exigible from the person upon

whom they lie. A single example may illustrate the nature of both. It is a common enough practice, when lands are sold, for the seller not to insist on payment of the full price at the time of the sale, but to allow a part of the price to remain on the lands as a burden. If the balance so left be declared … to be a real lien … it is a burden for which the lands may be attached and sold, into whose possession soever they may come. But if the burden of payment of the remainder of the price be laid upon the purchaser alone, and not upon the lands, then the burden is personal, and a subsequent purchaser from him incurs no liability therefor, the lands not being affected. John Trayner, Trayner’s Latin Maxims 423 (4th ed. 1894).

[Blacks Law 8th]