What type of right is a property right? How are items of property classified for legal purposes? In this revised edition of Personal Property Law, Michael Bridge provides answers to these fundamental questions of property law. His critical analysis includes new material on insolvency, in particular the anti-deprivation principle and the pari passu rule, as well as comprehensive accounts of recent case law (OBG v Allan, Yearworth, and Datastream,) and statutory developments. Widely considered to be the best short introduction to English personal property law, Bridge constructs an authoritative and systematic summary of this complex field for readers approaching the subject for the first time. It focuses on the acquisition, loss, transfer, and protection of interests in personal property law, and specific topics include: ownership and possession; treatment of the separate contributions of the common law and equity to modern personal property law; discussion of modes of transfer; the means of protecting property interests; the resolution of disputes concerning title to personal property; the grant of security interests, and the issues arising out of the transformation and mixing of tangible personal property.

What type of right is a property right? How are items of property classified for legal purposes? In this revised edition of Personal Property Law, Michael Bridge provides answers to these fundamental questions of property law. His critical analysis includes new material on insolvency, in particular the anti-deprivation principle and the pari passu rule, as well as comprehensive accounts of recent case law (OBG v Allan, Yearworth, and Datastream,) and statutory developments. Widely considered to be the best short introduction to English personal property law, Bridge constructs an authoritative and systematic summary of this complex field for readers approaching the subject for the first time. It focuses on the acquisition, loss, transfer, and protection of interests in personal property law, and specific topics include: ownership and possession; treatment of the separate contributions of the common law and equity to modern personal property law; discussion of modes of transfer; the means of protecting property interests; the resolution of disputes concerning title to personal property; the grant of security interests, and the issues arising out of the transformation and mixing of tangible personal property.

This timely book reviews the changes in legal reform around the constitutional protection of private property in China since 1949. Using a comparative approach, it analyses the development of property theories and the various constitutionalisation models and practices of private property in representative countries including the United States, Canada, Germany, India and China. It also explores the interwoven social forces that have been driving the evolution of the constitutional protection of private property in China. By comparing China with the United States, Germany and India, the author reveals the unfairness, unjustness and insufficiency in China's application of three constitutional doctrines - public use, just compensation and due process or procedure. The book concludes by predicting future progress and suggests feasible measures for gradual reform that will be compatible with China's existing political system.

The Study Group on a European Civil Code has taken upon itself the task of drafting common European principles for the most important aspects of the law of obligations and for certain parts of the law of property in movables which are especially relevant for the functioning of the common market. Like the Commission on European Contract Law's Principles of European Contract Law, the results of the research conducted by the Study Group on a European Civil Code seek to advance the process of Europeanization of private law. Among other topics the series tackles sales and service contracts, distribution contracts and security rights, renting contracts and loan agreements, negotiorum gestio, delicts and unjustified enrichment law, transfer of property, and trust law. The principles furnish each of the national jurisdictions a grid reference. They can be agreed upon by the parties within the framework of the rules of private international law. They may provide a stimulus to both the national and European legislator for moulding private law. Beyond this, they aim to further discussion about the creation of a European Civil Code, or a Common Frame of Reference in the area of patrimonial law, by submitting a concrete model. The Principles of European Law are published in co-operation with Bruylant (Belgium), Sellier. European Law Publishers (Germany) and Staempfli Publishers Ltd. (Switzerland).

Property enhances autonomy for most people, but not for all. Because it both empowers and disables, property requires constant vigilance. A Liberal Theory of Property addresses key questions: how can property be justified? What core values should property law advance, and how do those values interrelate? How is a liberal state obligated to act when shaping property law? In a liberal polity, the primary commitment to individual autonomy dominates the justification of property, founding it on three pillars: carefully delineated private authority, structural (but not value) pluralism, and relational justice. A genuinely liberal property law meets the legitimacy challenge confronting property by expanding people's opportunities for individual and collective self-determination while carefully restricting their options of interpersonal domination. The book shows how the three pillars of liberal property account for core features of existing property systems, provide a normative vocabulary for evaluating central doctrines, and offer directions for urgent reforms.

Property enhances autonomy for most people, but not for all. Because it both empowers and disables, property requires constant vigilance. A Liberal Theory of Property addresses key questions: how can property be justified? What core values should property law advance, and how do those values interrelate? How is a liberal state obligated to act when shaping property law? In a liberal polity, the primary commitment to individual autonomy dominates the justification of property, founding it on three pillars: carefully delineated private authority, structural (but not value) pluralism, and relational justice. A genuinely liberal property law meets the legitimacy challenge confronting property by expanding people's opportunities for individual and collective self-determination while carefully restricting their options of interpersonal domination. The book shows how the three pillars of liberal property account for core features of existing property systems, provide a normative vocabulary for evaluating central doctrines, and offer directions for urgent reforms.

The Study Group on a European Civil Code has taken upon itself the task of drafting common European principles for the most important aspects of the law of obligations and for certain parts of the law of property in movables which are especially relevant for the functioning of the common market.
Like the Commission on European Contract Law's "Principles of European Contract Law," the results of the research conducted by the Study Group on a European Civil Code seek to advance the process of Europeanization of private law. Among other topics the series tackles sales and service contracts, distribution contracts and security rights, renting contracts and loan agreements, negotiorum gestio, delicts and unjustified enrichment law, transfer of property, and trust law.
The principles furnish each of the national jurisdictions a grid of reference. They can be agreed upon by the parties within the framework of the rules of private international law. They may provide a stimulus to both the national and European legislator for molding private law. Beyond this, they aim to further discussion about the creation of a European Civil Code, or a Common Frame of Reference in the area of patrimonial law, by submitting a concrete model.
The "Principles of European Law" are published in co-operation with Bruylant (Belgium), Oxford University Press (United Kingdom) and Staempfli Publishers Ltd. (Switzerland).

Water resources were central to England's precocious economic development in the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries, and then again in the industrial, transport, and urban revolutions of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Each of these periods saw a great deal of legal conflict over water rights, often between domestic, agricultural, and manufacturing interests competing for access to flowing water. From 1750 the common-law courts developed a large but unstable body of legal doctrine, specifying strong property rights in flowing water attached to riparian possession, and also limited rights to surface and underground waters.
The new water doctrines were built from older concepts of common goods and the natural rights of ownership, deriving from Roman and Civilian law, together with the English sources of Bracton and Blackstone. Water law is one of the most Romanesque parts of English law, demonstrating the extent to which Common and Civilian law have commingled. Water law stands as a refutation of the still-common belief that English and European law parted ways irreversibly in the twelfth century. Getzler also describes the economic as well as the legal history of water use from early times, and examines the classical problem of the relationship between law and economic development. He suggests that water law was shaped both by the impact of technological innovations and by economic ideology, but above all by legalism.

Ranging over a host of issues, Property Rights: A Re-Examination pinpoints and addresses a number of theoretical problems at the heart of property theory. Part 1 reconsiders and rejects, once again, the bundle of rights picture of property and the related nominalist theories of property, showing that ownership reflects a tripartite structure of title: the right to immediate, exclusive, possession, the power to license what would otherwise be a trespass, and the power to transfer ownership. Part 2 explores in detail the Hohfeldian theory of jural relations, in particular liberties and powers and Hohfeld's concept of 'multital' jural relations, and shows that this theory fails to illuminate the nature of property rights, and indeed obscures much that it is vital to understand about them. Part 3 considers the form and justification of property rights, beginning with the relation an owner's liberty to use her property and her 'right to exclude', with particular reference to the tort of nuisance. Next up for consideration is the Kantian theory of property rights, the deficiencies of which lead us to understand that the only natural right to things is a form of use- or usufructory-right. Part 3 concludes by addressing the ever-vexed question of property rights in land.

This is a new edition of our well-established Property text in the renowned Clarendon Law Series. It is completely revised and updated to incorporate all recent legislative changes and provides a clear and critical account of the basic principles of the law of property. It provides both a succinct and thoughtful overview of the subject for those coming to it for the first time (e.g. as pre-course reading) and also pulls together themes and raises thought-provoking insights and synergies for those reading it after they have completed both property heads.

Property is a legal and social institution governing the use of most things and the allocation of some items of social welfare. As an institution, property is a complex organizing idea. Despite its complexity, property, as an organizing idea, is now very old and is now used worldwide. The oldest written records atttest to it. Few primitive peoples, whose societies have been researched by anthropologists, have turned out to lack any conception of it. In the modern world, any normal person will have heard of it, from childhood onwards. In the modern world, the institution of property is everywhere embodied in law. That is to say, the various organs of government deploy it, officially as part of the mechanism for controlling the use of things and as part of the mechanism for supervising or directing the allocation of wealth. This work examines the legal and philosophical underpinnings of the concept of property and offers a new alaytical framework for understanding property and justices. Bridging the gulf between juristic writing on property and speculations about it appearing in the tradition of western political philosophy, Jim Harris has built from entirely new foundations an analytical framework for understanding the nature of property and its connection with justice. Dr Harris' achievement is a monumental one marrying the subtlety of contemporary political philosophy with the fine detail of technical legislation and difficult litigation in English property law. The result greatly improves our understanding of the philosophical dimension of property and at the same time allows us to stand back from the detail and see the patterns which emerge.

The Foreclosure Echo tells the story of the ordinary people whose quest for the American dream was crushed in the foreclosure crisis when they were threatened with losing their homes. The authors, Linda E. Fisher and Judith Fox - each with decades of experience defending low-to-moderate-income people from foreclosure and predatory lending practices - have employed a range of legal, economic, and social-science research to document these stories, showing not only how people experienced the crisis, but also how lenders and public institutions failed to protect them. The book also describes the ongoing effects of the crisis - including vacant land and abandoned buildings - and how these conditions have exacerbated the economic plight of millions of people who lost their homes and have increased inequality across the country. This book should be read by anyone who wants to understand the fallout of the last financial crisis and learn what we can do now to avoid another one.

When part of a person's body is separated from them, or when a person dies, it is unclear what legal status the item of bodily material is able to obtain. A 'no property rule' which states that there is no property in the human body was first recorded in an English judgment in 1882. Claims based on property rights in the human body and its parts have failed on the basis that the human body is not the subject of property. Despite a recent series of exceptions to the 'no property rule', the law still has no clear answer as to the legal status of the body or its material. In this book, Wall examines the appropriate legal status of bodily material, and in doing so, develops a way for the law to address disputes over the use and storage of bodily material that, contrary to the current trend, resists the application of property law. Wall assesses when a person ought to be able to possess, control, use, or profit from, his or her own bodily material or the bodily material of another person. Bodily material may be valuable because it retains a functional unity with the body or is a material resource that is in short supply. With this in mind, Wall measures the extent to which property law can represent the rights and duties that protects the entitlement that a person may exercise in bodily material, and identifies the limits to the appropriate application of property law. An alternative to property law is developed with reference to the right of bodily integrity and the right to privacy.

Property has long played a central role in political and moral philosophy. Philosophers dealing with property have tended to follow the consensus that property has no special content but is a protean construct - a mere placeholder for theories aimed at questions of distributive justice and efficiency. Until recently there has been a relative absence of serious philosophical attention paid to the various doctrines that shape the actual law of property. If the philosophy of property is to be more attentive to concepts lying between broad considerations of political philosophy and distributive justice on the one hand and individual rules on the other, what in this broad space needs explaining, and how might we justify what we find? The papers in this volume are a first step towards filling this gap in the philosophical analysis of private law. This is achieved here by revisiting the contributions of philosophers such as Hume, Locke, Kant, and Grotius and revealing how particular doctrines illuminate the way in which property law respects the equality and autonomy of its subjects. Secondly, by exploring the central notions of possession, ownership, and title and finally by considering the very foundations of conceptualism in property.

The Study Group on a European Civil Code has taken upon itself the task of drafting common European principles for the most important aspects of the law of obligations and for certain parts of the law of property in movables which are especially relevant for the functioning of the common market. Like the Commission on European Contract Law's Principles of European Contract Law, the results of the research conducted by the Study Group on a European Civil Code seek to advance the process of Europeanisation of private law. Among other topics the series tackles sales and service contracts, distribution contracts and security rights, renting contracts and loan agreements, negotiorum gestio, delicts and unjustified enrichment law, transfer of property, and trust law. The principles furnish each of the national jurisdictions a grid reference. They can be agreed upon by the parties within the framework of the rules of private international law. They may provide a stimulus to both the national and European legislator for moulding private law. Beyond this, they aim to further discussion about the creation of a European Civil Code, or a Common Frame of Reference in the area of patrimonial law, by submitting a concrete model. The Principles of European Law are published in co-operation with Bruylant (Belgium), Sellier. European Law Publishers (Germany) and Staempfli Publishers Ltd. (Switzerland).

The A Practical Approach series is the perfect partner for practice work. Each title focuses on one field of the law, providing a comprehensive overview of the subject together with clear, practical advice and tips on issues likely to arise in practice. The books are also an excellent resource for those new to the law, where the expert overview and clear layout promote clarity and ease of understanding. Now in its eighth edition, A Practical Approach to Landlord and Tenant continues to provide a comprehensive and systematic guide to the particularly complex principles and practice of landlord and tenant law. Condensing the case law and statutory codes into one manageable volume, this book provides a valuable, user-friendly introduction for lawyers and students alike. The authors explain the fundamentals of landlord and tenant law, providing a broad coverage from creating a tenancy through to termination. Offering extensive treatment of both the common law and statutory codes, this book provides detailed analysis of areas such as leases, tenancy, assignment and subletting, agricultural holdings, business tenancies, and eviction. The eighth edition has been comprehensively updated to cover all recent developments in landlord and tenant law. It considers the requirements on landlords defined in the Deregulation Act 2015, as well as the developments on the seizing of tenant's assets as contained in the Commercial Rent Arrears Recovery Procedure (CRAR) 2014. This edition provides an overview of the effect that the provisions of the Immigration Act 2016, and the Housing and Planning Act 2016 will have on residential tenancies in England. It also reflects on the impact of new case law, such as the advances in the tenancy deposit protection scheme as well as changes to business and assured tenancies. Very much a practical guide, this title makes frequent use of examples, checklists, forms and precedents, specifically designed to assist the busy professional and student. A Practical Approach to Landlord and Tenant is an indispensable resource for those working in this field.

This book provides a detailed and up-to-date exposition of English and Scottish rules of choice of law in inter vivos transfers of property. It traces the development of the lex situs rule, and its application to inter vivos dealings with immovable property, tangible movable property (including the special case of cultural property), and intangible movable property (including indirectly held securities). The author offers two alternative models of suggested choice of law rules in property, introducing a greater degree of flexibility into choice of law rules in property, and formulates even-handed solutions to the complex problems of space, time and policy which arise in this area of the conflict of laws.

The Study Group on a European Civil Code has taken upon itself the task of drafting common European principles for the most important aspects of the law of obligations and for certain parts of the law of property in movables which are especially relevant for the functioning of the common market. Like the Commission on European Contract Law's Principles of European Contract Law, the results of the research conducted by the Study Group on a European Civil Code seek to advance the process of Europeanisation of private law. Among other topics the series tackles sales and service contracts, distribution contracts and security rights, renting contracts and loan agreements, negotiorum gestio, delicts and unjustified enrichment law, transfer of property, and trust law. The principles furnish each of the national jurisdictions a grid reference. They can be agreed upon by the parties within the framework of the rules of private international law. They may provide a stimulus to both the national and European legislator for moulding private law. Beyond this, they aim to further discussion about the creation of a European Civil Code, or a Common Frame of Reference in the area of patrimonial law, by submitting a concrete model. The Principles of European Law are published in co-operation with Bruylant (Belgium), Sellier. European Law Publishers (Germany), Staempfli Publishers Ltd. (Switzerland).

When philosophers put forward claims for or against 'property', it is often unclear whether they are talking about the same thing that lawyers mean by 'property'. Likewise, when lawyers appeal to 'justice' in interpreting or criticizing legal rules we do not know if they have in mind something that philosophers would recognize as 'justice'. J. W. Harris here examines the legal and philosophical underpinnings of the concept of property and offers a new analytical framework for understanding property and justice.

"Unclaimed Property: A Reporting Process and Audit Survival Guide" breaks the unclaimed property process down into manageable steps that you can either handle on your own or with the help of a professional in the field. Author Tracey Reid presents a thorough introduction to every aspect of unclaimed property laws, clarifying what unclaimed property is, how the escheat laws apply to your particular circumstance, and how you can bring your enterprise into compliance with the least amount of manpower and cash outlay possible.

The law of personal property covers a very wide spectrum of scenarios and, unfortunately, has had little detailed scrutiny of its overarching structure over the years. It is a system and can best be understood as a system. Indeed, without understanding it as a system, it becomes much more difficult to comprehend. The second edition of this acclaimed textbook continues to provide a comprehensive yet detailed coverage of the law of personal property in England and Wales. It includes transfer of legal title to chattels, the nemo dat rule, negotiable instruments and assignment of choses in action. It also looks at defective transfers of property and the resulting proprietary claims, including those contingent on tracing, the tort of conversion, bailment and security interests. By bringing together areas often scattered throughout company law, commercial law, trusts and tort textbooks, it enables readers to see common themes and issues and to make otherwise impossible generalisations across different contexts about the nature of the concepts English law applies. Throughout the book, concepts are explained rigorously, with reference to how they are used in commercial practice and everyday life. The new edition also includes a new chapter on secured transactions law reform, and introduces new material on the Cape Town Convention, IP rights and other intangible property. The book will be of primary interest to academics and practitioners in the area. However, it will also be of use to students studying commercial or personal property law.

The debate over whether human bodies and their parts should be governed by the laws of property has accelerated with the pace of technological change. Having long held that a corpse could not be property, the common law first recognised that there could be a property interest in human tissue in some circumstances in the early 1900s, but it was not until a string of judicial decisions and statutory regulation in the 1990s and early 2000s that the place of this 'exception' was cemented. The 2009 decision of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales in Yearworth & Ors v North Bristol NHS Trust added a new dimension to the debate by supporting a move towards a broader, more principled basis for finding (or rejecting) property rights in human tissue. However, the law relating to property rights in human bodies and their parts remains highly contested. The contributions in this volume represent a collation of the broad spectrum of analyses on offer, and provide a detailed exploration of the salient legal and theoretical puzzles arising out of the body-as-property question.

This is the first book to explain the body of English law that surrounds the question "Are finders keepers?" This most simple of questions has long evaded a satisfactory legal answer. Generally, it seems to have been accepted that a finder acquires a property right in the object of his or her find and can protect it from subsequent interference, but even this turns out to be the baldest statement of principle, resting on obscure and confused authority. This full-length treatment of finders sets them in their legal-historical context, focusing on a fascinating area of law lying at the crossroads of crime, obligations, and property. That, on the same facts, a finder might be a thief, a bailee, and/or a property right holder has clouded conceptual analysis and prevented the simple stating of rules about finding. Nonetheless, when the applicable doctrines and policies of property law, particularly the central concept of possession, are explored and understood in the light of countervailing rules of crime and tort, it can be argued confidently that, despite centuries of doubt and confusion, English law has succeeded in producing a body of law that is theoretically and practically coherent. Property and the Law of Finders makes this argument. It is an important source of information for anyone interested in the law of personal property and also for those with broader concerns about the evolution of common law concepts.

This study of the boundaries of personal property has an inward and an outward perspective, with the intellectual emphasis on the latter. The inward-looking inquiry considers shares as items of personal property. Nowadays those who think of themselves as shareholders often stand one step removed from the share itself. They hold what this book christens a sub-share. This part of the book asks in what sense shares and sub-shares can be conceived to be things, how those things are alienated, and how they are protected in litigation. The outward-looking inquiry then asks whether personal property can be contemplated as a sub-category of the law of things and, more particularly, as the law of all things locatable in space, alienable, or vindicable in court. The outward inquiry considers three boundaries. Within the law of property the line between realty and personalty proves relatively uncontroversial; the second boundary lies between property and obligations; the third between wealth and non-wealth. The second boundary is the main concern. Respect for it necessitates a differentiation between the law of property in the strict sense and the all-encompassing law of wealth, even where the consequence might be to exclude shares and sub-shares from the law of property. In maintaining the value of careful proprietary taxonomy and in reviving the underlying concepts on which it depends, this book opposes modern scepticism as to the possibility and desirability of precision in legal classification. In these commitments it could fairly be styled a post-modern study of personal property. Winner of the SLS Birks Prize for Outstanding Legal Scholarship 2006 - Second Prize.