European Property Rights and Wrongs - Diana Wallis MEP

the doctrine of effectiveness (effet utile) requires Member States to extend the
application beyond contract law into property law. 24
Finally, the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive explicitly applies to land. 25
This is highly relevant, because the B2C sale of land therefore comes under the
regime of this directive, closely monitored by the CJEU. Its application to conveyancing
of land prevents many unfair marketing of land and therefore prevents
misleading foreign buyers, especially because the Directive also sanctions the
omission of relevant information.
C2C Transaction
In B2C situations, there is therefore a relatively effective regime in place to help and
protect foreign buyers of land. The problem with land law is that it is far from certain
that transactions take place in a B2C setting. It is far more likely that a foreign
buyer acquires an entitlement to land from another private person. In such a situation,
also if that person is represented by a professional agent, there is no unequal
bargaining position and the rules of EU contract law described above do not apply.
Complexity; the example of the Timeshare Directive
Since 1994 there has been a Directive dealing with Timeshare arrangements,
which was renewed in 2007. As highlighted above, a timeshare in the property
law meaning of the term is a property law entitlement to land for a limited, usually
recurring, period of time and is unknown to civil law systems as it requires a
fragmentation of ownership. Unitary ownership as is adhered to in the civil law
makes it impossible have this kind of arrangement. Instead, usually a legal person
is created that gives out shares or certificates, which are sold as timeshare ownership.
Timeshare arrangements are therefore offered in many Member States and
24 See Case C-350/03 Elisabeth and Wolfgang Schulte v. Deutsche Bausparkasse Badenia
[2005] ECR I-9215, Case C-481/99 Heininger [2001] ECR I-9945, Case C-229/04
Crailsheimer Volksbank eG v Klaus Conrads ea [2005] ECR I-09273.
25 Title and reference Directive 2005/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the
Council of 11 May 2005 concerning unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices
in the internal market and amending Council Directive 84/450/EEC, Directives
97/7/EC, 98/27/EC and 2002/65/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council
and Regulation (EC) No 2006/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council
(‘Unfair Commercial Practices Directive’).
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