Bava Batra 68 – One Sells a Town

One who sells a town without specifying what is included in the sale has sold the houses, pits, ditches, and vaults, the bathhouses, the dovecotes, and the olive presses, but he has not sold the movable property that is in town, such as household implements and food, because he plans to take these with him.

However, if he said, “I am selling you the town and all that is contained therein,” then even if there were animals and slaves in the town at the time of the sale, they are sold along with the town.

Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says, “He has sold even the santer.” What is a santer is a matter of dispute: either a town clerk, a slave owned by the city, who kept information on boundaries and ownership of properties, or the fields that immediately surround the city.