Lec5PropertyLaw.pptVIP

Lec5: Property Law 费维宝 外语学院英语系 The Law of Property The old common law(普通法,英美法) was preeminently(显著地) the law of real property(不动产); and the distinction between “real property” and “personal property”(动产) was a crucial one(区别). Generally speaking, real property means real estate(房地产)— land and buildings—but it also includes such things as growing crops. Everything else—money, stocks and bonds, jewelry, cars, carloads of lumber, IOUs（借据）bank deposits is personal property. （动产） We all have a stake （利益）in real estate, since we all live somewhere; and we work, study, and travel somewhere, too. Everyone is a renter（承租人） or an owner（业主）, or lives with renters or owners. But for most of us，that as far as the law is concerned the word “property” means primarily real property（不动产）; personal property is of minor importance（次要；不太重要）. Actually, personal property is legally a minor field（次要领域）. There is no single, special field of law devoted to（专用于） personal property（动产）. Personal property is what contract law, commercial law（商法）, and bankruptcy law—yes, and torts（侵权法）, too—are all about. But there are so many special rules （专门的法规）about real estate that it makes sense to treat this as a separate field of law. Property law is still one of the fundamental branches of law，and real estate is a significant branch of law practice(法律实践). Yet property law is a mere shadow of its former self [财产法仅是其前身的翻版], legally speaking. In fact, one of the major developments in our system, if you take the long view(从长远来看）, is the relative decline （衰落）of real property law. In medieval （中世纪）England, it would have only been a slight exaggeration to say that land law was the law of the land. When Blackstone published his “Commentaries”，midway through the eighteenth century（十八世纪中叶）, one whole volume was devoted （阐述）to land law. A modern Blackstone（现代版的布莱克斯通的《英格兰法释义》） would shrink the topic to a fraction of this bulk 5 or 10 percent, at most, of the total law. Medieval （中世纪）England lived unde