Christof,
I think Dragan might be correct about the pointers back to the class if the property isn't overridden. This would actually be a good way of minimizing memory use where string properties are concerned.
>I doubt, too, that we can really figure out how VFP handles properties. We can guess from observations, but that's all. One of these observations for example would be that in the BeforeOpenTable event the form does exist and all of it properties have go the default value of the class. It's not before Load that overridden properties are evaluated and assigned to the form.