Property, Things and Rights - Core Concepts in Property Law

Vocabulary flashcards covering core concepts of property, things, and rights in Scots Property Law based on the lecture notes.

Real Rights

A right in a thing that is strong, durable, and enforceable erga omnes ("against the world").

Personal Rights

A right enforceable only against an identifiable specific person or class of people, such as rights arising in contract, delict, or unjustified enrichment.

Ownership (dominium)

The supreme, primary real right in Scots law that encompasses usus, fructus et abutendi, and from which all secondary real rights flow.

Jura in re aliena

Subordinate (secondary) real rights held in the property of another, such as lease, proper liferent, servitude, real burden, security, and possession.

Publicity Principle

The underlying principle in property law requiring real rights to be publicly flagged up for the information of third parties, such as through land registration or possession.

Unititular System

The principle in Scots law that there is only one single right of ownership in a given thing (or one class of co-owners), completely precluding anyone else from simultaneous ownership.

Personalist Theory

A theory of real rights that focuses on the specific persons against whom the rights are enforced.

Classical Theory

A theory of real rights that focuses on the direct relationship between a person and a thing as the object of the right.

Corporeal Property

Property that has a physical body and can literally be handled or grasped.

Incorporeal Property

Property that has no physical body or presence, such as rights, claims, or debts.

Heritable Property

Immoveable property (such as land) that cannot move, historically named after rules tied to the law of succession.

Moveable Property

All property that is not heritable/immoveable (spelt with two 'e's in Scots legal parlance).

Fourfold Classification of Things

The legal matrix formed by combining corporeal/incorporeal with heritable/moveable into four categories: Corporeal heritable, Incorporeal heritable, Corporeal moveable, and Incorporeal moveable.

Extra commercium

Things that are legally incapable of ownership or practically inalienable, such as running water, rain, wind, live human beings, and dead bodies.

Section 29 of the Scotland Act 1998

The statutory provision confirming that Scots property law is a devolved function.

Article 1 Protocol 1 (ECHR)

The European Convention on Human Rights provision stating that everyone should generally be allowed peaceful enjoyment of their property without unreasonable deprivation or controls.

Proudhon's Maxim on Property

The critique expressed as "La propriété, c'est le vol!" ("Property is theft!").

Knight v Wedderburn (1778)

A historic authority in Scots law establishing that live human beings are incapable of being private property.