European Property Rights and Wrongs - Diana Wallis MEP

Property law reflects society and this varies widely across the continent, as does
the nature of the land being regulated. Public opinion would not support a massive
transfer of powers over property to Brussels. The treaties establishing the EU
recognise the competence of each state to organise its own system of property.
Subsidiarity requires that decisions should be made at a national level. Although
some people support a common civil code and there is even a draft circulating
(the Draft Common Frame of Reference) this development seems to be a political
impossibility. There would be outrage were Brussels to impose, for example, a
single planning system across the continent.
The flip side of this is seen when an EU citizen purchases a property in another
State. The EU lacks the competence to deal with defects in domestic property law.
Timeshare provides an ideal illustration. The very word makes the majority of the
UK population shudder, the result of the aggressive marketing techniques once
used. This was before EU legislation swept the Continent clear of malpractice.
Europe has scored a major success in regulating aspects of marketing such as
information and withdrawal, in banning unfair practices, and (under a new version
of the Directive) resale and exchange. Around three quarters of complaints
received by the Commission fall within the European ambit. This leaves one quarter
to national laws, issues arising from the substantive law such as the ownership
structure of timeshare blocks, management and problems with new build blocks.
Excessive service charges are the new battleground.
This explains why victims of the ‘land grab’ laws in Valencia have not found
redress through the EU and why MEPs have been frustrated in their efforts to
help. If a rural property is urbanised and as a result infrastructure costs are imposed
on the owner of a property, that action is controlled primarily by the law
of the Spanish region where the property is sited, a law which operates within
the regional and Spanish constitutions. If a property has been built illegally in a
protected coastal zone, a decision to order its demolition is regulated in the same
way. In both cases the Spanish authorities may be constrained by the principles of
the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right to property,
though as explained elsewhere this will only assist in quite exceptional cases.
The law of the European Union draws a blank because states are allowed to organise
their own systems of property law. (Where the EU does have competence,
it must respect the right to property in the same way that states must do so.)
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A European Land Law?