1,720,996 research outputs found
Drafting (and redrafting) comparative property questionnaires
No full textIn an edited version of an address to a conference held in Utrecht on ‘Improving Research Methodology’, the author seeks to draw general lessons from his experience over fifteen years in working on comparative projects on the law of immovable property. Lessons are sought in three broad areas, choice of jurisdiction, terminology and overcoming methodological differences. All comparison is functional, but guidance is provided on what this means in practice in relation to methodological differences in the approach to facts, in securing comparable texts form legal systems of different size and differing greatly in the degree of churn within the system, and how to overcome formulaic responses in the search for a readable narrative. The author proposes a golden rule of comparison, that a satisfactory questionnaire can only be drafted when its author knows all the answers
A new land law (2nd edition)
No full textPeter Sparkes’ path-breaking text on land law has been rewritten with two aims in mind: to incorporate the seismic changes introduced by the Land Registration Act 2002,along with commonholds, the explosion of human rights jurisprudence, and the unremitting advance of judicial exposition; and to accommodate the author’s developing thinking on the structural aspects of the subject.The book opens with a series of shorter chapters each exploring a fundamental building block: registration; houses flats and commonholds; land, ownership and its transactional powers; social controls balanced by human rights to property; fragmentation by time (the doctrine of estates), divisions of ownership and proprietary rights. In terms of substantive chapters the book opens with discussion of the new transfer system -- paper-based transfer alongside the evolution towards electronic conveyancing -- and the consequent changes to the proof of registered titles and to the registration curtain. The new approach to adverse possession against registered titles has called for extended discussion, as has the authoritative elucidation of the concept of adverse possession in Pye. In terms of proprietary interests the fundamentals are seen as rights to transfer, beneficial interests under trusts which are overreachable, burdens which are endurable, leases, money charges such as mortgages which are redeemable, and the obligations enforcible within the neighbour principle -- easements, covenants and positive covenants being treated as a semi-coherent whole. An attempt has been made to assist students by moving some of the more arcane learning later into the book or into separate chapters where these matters might be more readily ignored by a candidate concerned primarily to prepare for an examination. "A massive amount of research and scholarship has gone into the book, with impressive citation of cases, articles and case-notes, and of other text-books…This newcomer on the scene is a considerable addition to the ranks of serious text-books on land law and the author is to be congratulated.
European Land Law
No full textIn his remarkable, path-breaking new book, Peter Sparkes takes stock of the development of a distinctive body of European land law, taking as his starting point the idea that methods of land-holding permitted by a legal system both shape and reflect the attitudes of the land owners and society in general. However it quickly becomes very difficult to test that idea when the society in question is governed by an internal market composed of 30 countries (the EU-27, including Bulgaria and Romania, and the EEA-3), whose property systems differ so markedly and which reflect such widely differing cultures. Yet the internal market has already effected a gradual equalisation and standardisation across Europe as foreign capital spreads to create equality of yield. "We all become better off by joining a larger trading block but the social consequences will be profound: Brits will need to emigrate to the continent to afford a home, Bulgarians will need to make way for them along the Black Sea coast, and title deeds will be reshuffled all over Europe on a giant Monopoly board" writes the author in his preface, before embarking on a dispassionate examination of the beginning of that process of profound change.The opening chapters are devoted to an explanation of how the internal market has created a substantive European land law. Chapter 3 examines the rise of a distinctive European land law, and the development of conflicts principles applying to recovery of land. Chapters 5 to 9 on the marketing and sale of land focus upon Community competence on consumer protection. The decision to treat land as a product like any other in the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive will have wide ranging and far reaching implications and, apart from marketing of land and of timeshares, other chapters deal with conveyancing, contracting and the emerging market in mortgage credit. The book concludes with a miscellany of conflicts rules which are gradually coalescing and form the elements from which a substantive European land law can be forged. A number of topics which it is not possible to cover in detail (VAT, other taxes, environmental controls and agriculture) are touched on briefly, and the same is true of international aspects of trusts and succession. <br/
HM Land Registry: public or private?
No full textThe Land Registry in England is to be merged with other agencies to create a ‘comprehensive geospatial data body’ which will be ‘the largest repository of open land data in the world’. Its function of providing public information about plots and titles is traced to the opening of the register in 1990, and the restoration of price information. The Housing White Paper now proposes a much wider role in tackling the shortage of houses by ‘making land ownership and interests more transparent’ That this will ‘release massive value from our land, and ‘help people and developers build’ is thought to be an alternative reality
A new landlord and tenant
No full textThis book is designed to complement the author’s A New Land Law,integrating with that work in its simplified terminology, and emphasising a three-fold functional classification of leases – short residential tenancies, long residential leases and commercial leases. Rented housing is treated as a unified whole, with particular prominence being given to shorthold arrangements. The book includes reference to the changes to the allocation and homelessness regimes proposed by Part II of the Homes Bill 2000. It also considers the impact of the Human Rights Act 1998, the changes to repossession procedures implemented by the Woolf Reforms, and the year 2000 bumper crop of decisions on housing law.Leasehold tenure is undergoing dramatic changes. The book draws a functional distinction between long residential leases and rental arrangements, based on the registrability of long leases, their freedom from rent controls and security of tenure, special controls of management and forfeiture, and enfranchisement rights. Extensive coverage is given to the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill 2000, introduced into the House of Lords in December 2000, and promising improvements in the enfranchisement schemes, additional management controls, and a commonhold scheme. Topics on commercial leases (business and agricultural) given special attention include the reasonable recipient principle for the construction of notices, a decision on the effect on a sub-tenant of an upwards notice to quit by his head tenant, and Law Commission proposals on the Termination of Tenancies (1999). Contents: 1. Renting 2. Contractual Duration 3. Shortholds 4. Allocation and Homelessness 5. Full Residential Security 6. Limited Security Arrangements 7. Tied Accommodation 8. Domestic Protection 9. Residential Rents 10. Condition of Rented Property 11. Assignment 12. Peaceful Occupation 13. Residential Repossession 14. Leasehold Homes 15. Individual Enfranchisement 16. Flat Schemes 17. Commonhold 18. Right to Buy 19. Commercial Grants 20. Renewable Business Leases 21. Termination without Renewal 22. Agricultural Leases 23. Freedom of Business Contract 24. Business Rents 25. Repairs to Business Premises 26. Business Leases of Part 27. Dealings 28. Running of Covenants 29. Forfeiture<br/
Formality and electronic wills in Society of Legal scholars Property and Trusts Section 'Law Commission CP 231 'Making a Will'
No full textProperty and Trusts - England and Wales
No full textMonograph on Law of Property and Trusts in the International Encyclopaedia of Law
How beneficial interests stack up
No full textThis note attempts to explain why the House of Lords was compelled to abandon the purchase money resulting trust in Stack v Dowden [2007] UKHL 17, reasons which have remained obscure because the abolition was unargued. The decision, it is suggested, was an unprincipled response to the quantification issue arising on particular facts which has created unnecessary technical dislocation. In particular it is argued that the predominant fact of the case was the large inflationary gain occurring over period of 13 years, a gain which overshadowed the monetary contributions to the purchase
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