European Property Rights and Wrongs - Diana Wallis MEP

Each of these countries has a national Eurojuris association comprising medium
sized independent lawyers’ chambers. For example my chamber in Nivelle has 23
lawyers. In all these countries, cabinets have to satisfy selection criteria, particularly
related to quality. Eurojuris also works with several cabinets throughout the
world, but the goal is to give companies, public authorities, and individuals, direct
legal counsel and advice and local representation everywhere in Europe.
Members of Eurojuris international meet twice a year to take part in specialist
practice groups, particularly with regards to property law, the members from each
country meet to discuss the issues going on in each country, and exchange on their
daily practices. One of the major current themes is purchasing real property across
borders within the EU. I will deal with this issue in four points, the first relates to
the difficulties relating to the diversity of legal systems and concepts linked to
property rights in Europe, a subject covered elsewhere in this publication. The second
difficulty relates to those acting in the field, notaries, lawyers, estate agents;
their status and powers can vary from one state to another. Then I’ll tell you a few
practical examples, and I will conclude by talking about the initiative of our Spanish
Iberjuris network, which has established a model system relating to this issue.
Consumers usually face an information deficit, linked to the property regime
in its widest sense. Here we are talking about ownership, co-ownership, rent
financing, long term leasing, time sharing, usufruct 43 etc. There is a lack of information
focused on the tax regimes and credit arrangements in other member
states relating to the purchase of property, this is another major obstacle to the
cross-border purchase of property. The Commission have acted in some cases
to prevent discriminatory practices in fiscal provision from preventing access
to property transactions in other Member States taking direct action against
Greece and Germany for example.
The problem is that there is no clear and reliable information source that would
enable us to have an idea of the different legal systems in force. Things are even
more complex because in each state there can be civil law rules that vary between
43 Usufruct is a concept of ownership in the Civil Code tradition similar to a life estate in
the Common Law tradition giving a right to use and enjoy real property during the lifetime
of the owner of the right. It is particularly important in French law on succession
where a standardised part of the deceased estate must pass to any surviving children.
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Linking up national Land Law systems