European Property Rights and Wrongs - Diana Wallis MEP

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equired was for the Court of Appeal in Florence to hear that a Belgian Judge gave the decision and that the decision was valid and recognised by the Italian Court. The EUROJURIS network enabled us to take an interesting approach here, rather than handing over the Belgian decision to my client and saying ‘well, now you get on with it, you go and deal with this in Italy’, rather than doing that, we were able to offer the client some continuity, by sending the file to my counterpart in Florence. Networking enables us to deal with one of the main obstacles faced; we managed to simplify the ways in which information can be accessed and allowed access to justice for the citizen of a Member State when a decision needs to be enforced in another Member State. This communication and this access to information enable us to promote and guarantee exchanges between companies from different Member States. If this wasn’t possible, the legal maze that the company in question would have to go through, may well produce a significant block on investment and contracts being signed in various Member States. The second example relates to a Belgian who had purchased property in Spain. His wife was Belgian as well and they were married under the regime of shared ownership of goods. In this instance he hadn’t got his wife to sign the purchase contract. When he got home he found that his wife wasn’t particularly happy with this purchase of property in Spain, so the cancellation of the contract became the issue. Under the Brussels I Regulation, the dispute comes under the jurisdiction of the Spanish Courts, particularly the Court of Figueras. The major difficulty in this kind of issue relates to checking the solutions that apply in Belgian civil law, and checking whether they are compatible with Spanish civil law, and more particularly with Catalan civil law, because there are specific rules relating to the purchase contract in Catalonia. Spanish law is essentially compatible with Belgian law in this, because the agreement of the spouse is essential under both legislations. But you can imagine for example, if the dispute was to do with the value of the property, and it is being overvalued, the solution would not have been so simple, because the rules on annulment on the grounds of misrepresentation are very different in the two countries, in spite of the fact that we have relatively similar legal bases in Spain and Belgium. Practically speaking, the fact that we had a network of professionals working with the same vision, and in accordance with the same quality standards enabled us to anticipate these problems and sometimes enables us to avoid court cases. 60 Linking up national Land Law systems
Let me give you another example, that of a Belgian family, whose parents married under the regime of shared ownership, and they had purchased a flat in France. The father died, and the family had to deal with issues relating to inheritance and transferring the property. The solution was relatively simple, French and Belgian laws are very similar; the solution was that the widow inherited usufruct from the husband, whereas the two sons inherited the underlying property rights. Obviously we still have to deal with issues relating to inheritance tax, where and to who this should be paid and also issues relating to amending the title deeds. Here once again the EUROJURIS network enabled us to come up with a pretty rapid solution to this, in particular giving us information on the issue rapidly. I conclude by giving you an example relating to the IBERJURIS network. This is the Spanish branch of EUROJURIS. A few years ago they took the initiative of establishing a specialised group on property law, with the objective of sharing and exchanging knowledge on property law in a professional and practical manner. At the same time, the lawyers who are members of IBERJURIS decided to standardise their legal consultations and services relating to the purchase and sale of property in Spain. They came up with the practical guide, including services necessary to safely complete the purchase of a property in Spain. This involves, they believe, checking not only whether the property is properly registered, but also looking at urban planning rules and local building laws, as well as carrying out a study of the financial and tax aspects of the transaction. Based on this guide, the lawyers of IBERJURIS will, when consulted, follow the points on the checklist giving more certainty for the purchaser. The IBERJURIS example is an excellent one, and all of us should have, in each member state, a local network, and a checklist which would mean that we could predict the main difficulties linked to property purchases. I believe that we should have this practical tool in every Member State, and perhaps legal professionals across the Member States could draft a standardised series of checklists working with the European Parliament. 61
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European Property Rights & Wrongs E
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Contents Introduction 5 A few words
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Introduction A few words from Diana
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with property rights (this being su
Page 9 and 10: level and provides a counterweight
Page 11 and 12: European Property Wrongs - what can
Page 13 and 14: area particularly in the resort of
Page 15 and 16: not be readily accessible to be sea
Page 17 and 18: the issues confronting citizens. So
Page 19 and 20: Realizing that on our own, or even
Page 21 and 22: The difficulties have arisen from t
Page 23 and 24: The lobbying continues to find a po
Page 25 and 26: the people of Parcent who welcomed
Page 27 and 28: The differences in conceptual and i
Page 29 and 30: Peter Sparkes European Land Law: to
Page 31 and 32: Two aspects of EU competence will n
Page 33 and 34: A lawyer equipped to handle the fir
Page 35 and 36: Bram Akkermans Property Law in Euro
Page 37 and 38: curacy of the information offered.
Page 39 and 40: the doctrine of effectiveness (effe
Page 41 and 42: Treaties are neutral whether shares
Page 43 and 44: Short Bibliography Bram Akkermans,
Page 45 and 46: Given the enormous divergence betwe
Page 47 and 48: sense, meaning the fullest right a
Page 49 and 50: Concluding remarks After some intro
Page 51 and 52: which the land is sited, that is fo
Page 53 and 54: The Valencian legislators need to b
Page 55 and 56: use law is regionalised and so the
Page 57 and 58: Practical solutions to the challeng
Page 59: egions. For example in Spain, commu
Page 63 and 64: • The Brussels I Regulation No.44
Page 65 and 66: puted, perhaps leading to the loss
Page 67 and 68: the land books. These rights are ve
Page 69 and 70: ance needs to be struck between pro
Page 71: www.alde.eu www.dianawallismep.org.
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European Property Rights and Wrongs - Diana Wallis MEP

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