TOWARDS A UNIFIED SYSTEM OF LAND BURDENS? Ed by Sjef van Erp and Bram Akkermans Antwerp/Oxford: Intersentia (http://www.intersentia.be), 2006. xii+186 pp. ISBN 9789050955850. £36.
| DOI | 10.3366/E1364980908230222 |
| Author | John MacLeod |
| Pages | 158-159 |
| Published date | 01 January 2008 |
| Date | 01 January 2008 |
A book whose title includes the words “unified” and “land burdens” legitimately raises expectations of discussion of subordinate real rights in land, cross-border investment and harmonisation of European private law. The title does not, however, intimate consideration of trespass on moveables by email, the division between Law and Equity or an argument from law-and-economics scholars which, remarkably, involves a proposal for radically increased transaction costs. Contributions to this collection of essays, however, tick all of these boxes, expected and otherwise. The result is an interesting mix, although not one which could be described as unified.
The editors book-end the collection: Sjef van Erp considers the analogies which might be drawn with virtual property and the implications they might have for land burdens, while Bram Akkermans gives an extensive consideration of the borderline between contract and property and the appropriate mechanisms for finding methods of binding successors to positive obligations, before moving to a more general overview of the papers. The other papers cover the European systems that we have come to expect in such volumes but there are a few surprises as well.
Manfred Wolf sets out the German law of servitudes both real and personal, highlighting in particular the
Vincent Sagaert surveys, with a hint of frustration, the fragmented nature of the Belgian and French law on land burdens. He regards the specific rules which restrict the creation of the various classes of burden as problematic and suggests that the real issue is an inadequate system for the discharge of burdens – a problem with which the Scottish conveyancer of former years could readily have sympathised. In such a situation, restrictions on creation are necessary to prevent the right of ownership being buried under a mass of subordinate rights. Sagaert, however, longs...
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