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 notwithstanding someone has a claim in justice that something should become his property, he has a right ad rem to it. Thus a farmer has a right in re to his harvest after he has gathered it; before it has grown he has only a right a d rem. The right of a servant to his wages is ad rem until they are paid; after they are paid his right is in re.

A right in re seems to be practically equivalent to ownership (dominium). Ownership is absolute or qualified. Absolute ownership is the unlimited power of disposing of a thing for one's own benefit. The absolute owner of a horse may use him, sell him, give him away, or kill him, without violating justice; he may do what he likes with his own. If ownership is limited in some way so that the owner has not a right to all the uses to which the object may be put, the ownership is qualified. Qualified ownership of the thing while its use belongs to someone else is called direct; qualified ownership of the use of what belongs to someone else is called indirect ownership.

According to English law, a subject is incapable of absolute ownership of realty; he is only capable of a qualified ownership therein, although to all intents and purposes an estate in fee simple is equivalent to absolute ownership. A qualified property of many {different kinds may be [had in realty, and both an absolute and qualified property of many different sorts may be had in movables. The various kinds of property, especially in immovables, are recognized and determined by law, which enforces the rights and obligations annexed thereto. In different systems of law there will be different kinds of property recognized. It will be sufficient for our purpose merely to mention ususfructus, usus, habitatio, servitus, of the Roman and canon law.

In English law the quantity of interest which a man has in lands and tenements is called an estate, of which there is a great variety: equitable and legal estates; estates of inheritance and not of inheritance; estates of freehold interest and less than freehold, such as estates for years, estates at will, and estates at sufferance.