Personal property is generally considered
property that is movable, as opposed to
real property or
real estate. In
common law systems, personal property may also be called
chattels or
personalty. In
civil law systems, personal property is often called
movable property or
movables – any property that can be moved from one location to another. This term is in distinction with
immovable property or immovables, such as land and buildings. Movable property on land, that which was not automatically sold with the land, included for example a larger
livestock (wildlife and smaller livestock like chickens, by contrast, were often sold as part of the land). In fact the word
cattle is the Old
Norman variant of
Old French chatel (derived from Latin
capitalis, “of the head”), which was once synonymous with general movable personal property.