authorities within the statutory time, the tax assessed cannot later be questioned. Under the Federal practice there is considerably greater delay in fixing the tax in the first instance and, in addition to this, the right of the Government to reopen the tax return and assess an additional tax at a future date is not subject to the same limitations as those characterizing the state inheritance tax proceedings.

When title is closed it is advisable to secure a bill of sale covering any household articles of personal property to be conveyed. These may be mentioned in the deed but, as a rule, the deed refers merely to the real property, and items of personal property are more properly taken care of by a bill of sale. Where the purchaser is to receive property, such as carpets, curtains, shades, awnings, mirrors, removable gas ranges, special lighting fixtures, and the like, it is important that the original contract of sale should so specify. The general rule is that personal property is not part of the real estate, and that no property which is not a fixture within the legal definition of that term—that is, affixed to the real estate so as to become part of the structure of the building-is conveyed by deed. If the contract of sale provides that personal property which it specifies shall be included in

the sale, the purchaser will be in a position to request the delivery of a proper bill of sale to him on the closing, or to have a proper clause inserted in the deed itself covering the additional property transferred.

When title is closed the purchaser should secure from the seller, if possible, any old deeds or abstracts of title or policies of title insurance which the seller may have. In many cases the seller will not be willing to part with the old deeds upon which his chain of title depends, preferring to hold them as evidence of title in the event of any question arising between him and the purchaser in the future. On the other hand, the seller is often quite willing to deliver these instruments. Where this is the case the purchaser should secure them and file them with his title papers.

Another point which should be considered and looked into is the matter of licenses which the seller, during his occupancy of the property, may have granted to public service companies. Where a telephone pole or electric light pole is erected on a person's property, the holder of the property should, without fail, secure from the company erecting the pole an agreement known as a revocable license. The effect of an agreement of this kind is that the holder of the prop

erty grants to the company a license to erect the pole but that it is understood and specifically agreed that this license can be revoked by the property holder at his option at any time. Where such an agreement is secured, the company cannot claim, after some years have elapsed, that it has procured a prescriptive right to maintain the pole indefinitely, by reason of the fact that the owner of the property has allowed it to be erected and maintained without protest. The same rule applies to other matters, such as a water or sewer line across one's property.

On the closing, the purchaser should ascertain the facts regarding any poles, lines of pipe, or other possible easements affecting the property or which may affect it in the future. If the seller has any papers covering these the purchaser should secure them so that he will be in a position to protect himself in the future against any claims by the public service companies that they have obtained a permanent right to maintain their poles or other equipment on the property. Where a revocable license has not been secured by the seller, the purchaser will do well to take up with the companies involved and secure from them himself, on taking title, revocable licenses covering whatever poles or lines of

wire or pipe are erected or laid upon or across his property. He will have little difficulty, in the ordinary case, in inducing the company to sign a revocable license. By securing such an agreement he will protect his property in the future from claims which might possibly otherwise be advanced, after a lapse of many years.

CHAPTER VII

THE SELECTION OF THE ARCHITECT

A

LL of the matters discussed up to this point have had to do with the selection

of the property and the taking of title. When title has once been secured, and the home builder is at last the owner of the property which he has selected, he is prepared to enter upon a different and far more interesting operation. He is now ready to proceed with the building operations, and the first step in this connection will be the selection of a competent architect. There are important questions to be considered and determined in this connection.

I am assuming that, in the vast majority of cases, the home builder will desire to engage the services of an architect. In some instances, of course, homes have been built without these services, but the instances where a really satisfactory and artistic result has been secured under this plan are rare. Anyone who undertakes to erect a house by dealing directly, himself, with the contractor and without securing