Also known as: lex situs
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
The location or position of a thing for legal purposes. In choice-of-law analysis the situs of land is the state where the land lies, and the law that would be applied by the courts of that state determines whether a mortgage or other conveyance creates an interest in the land and the nature of the interest created.
Stonehaven Properties, a Delaware lender, took a mortgage on an office building located in New Mexico from Sapphire Holdings, a Texas borrower. When Sapphire defaulted, Stonehaven sought foreclosure. The court applied New Mexico law to decide whether the mortgage created a valid interest in the land and what remedies were available.
Skylar Sullivan, domiciled in State X, sold equipment situated in State Y to Scott Summers, a resident of State Z. When a dispute arose over title, the court evaluated the contacts of each state with the equipment and the parties under the most-significant-relationship test to select the governing law.
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After a foreign government nationalized a bank, United States authorities sought assets held in the New York branch. The court treated the New York location of the assets as their situs and refused to give effect to the foreign decree that purported to reach them.
A United States citizen was allegedly abducted in Mexico. When suit was brought under the Federal Tort Claims Act, the court examined whether the claim arose in a foreign country by focusing on the situs of the alleged wrongful act.
A plaintiff sought to sequester shares of a Delaware corporation owned by nonresident defendants. Although the certificates were physically outside Delaware, the court deemed the situs of the stock to be in Delaware under state law and upheld the sequestration order.
A couple domiciled in North Carolina obtained an ex parte divorce in Nevada. When the validity of the decree was later challenged in North Carolina, the court considered whether the marital relationship had a situs in North Carolina that the Nevada court could not affect.
The situs state has the strongest interest in regulating title, use, and alienation of land that remains permanently within its borders. Applying the law that the situs courts would apply also promotes uniformity and protects the justified expectations of parties who consult local counsel before transacting in real property.
Supporting sources
Yes. Whether a mortgage creates an interest in land and the nature of that interest are determined by the law that would be applied by the courts of the situs.
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For issues involving interests in land the factors listed in Restatement § 6 almost invariably point to the law that would be applied by the courts of the situs, so the two approaches converge on the same result.
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…which was incorporated in Delaware. The stock certificates were not physically present in Delaware, but under Delaware law, the situs of the stock was deemed to be in Delaware. The individual defendants, whose primary residences and places of business were in Arizona, moved to quash service of process and to vacate the…