European Property Rights and Wrongs - Diana Wallis MEP

the land books. These rights are vested by the registry with strong effects, giving
the greatest protection to the purchaser’s right (positive effect).
Title registration systems avoid the expense of title searches, save time, reduce
the information asymmetry between the parties and lower transaction costs,
and therefore facilitate the integration of the Single Market.
CROBECO
Known as Cross-Border Electronic Conveyancing (CROBECO), this project aims to
establish simpler and more confidence-inspiring process for obtaining immovable
property abroad.
The purchasing procedure will largely be conducted electronically and settled
in the buyer’s home country. Foreign buyers often prefer the applicability of
protective rules from the law of their home country. Applicability of home country
law could have an important psychological effect on prospective foreign buyers.
Also because of the fact that the (bilingual) deed is processed in their own language
by a conveyancer from their home country, they get the feeling that they
can be more confident of their legal protection
It is, then, important to stress that CROBECO is a project that fully respects
the national systems in force. It does not attempt to eliminate requirements, but
to meet all the requirements of each State’s legislation establishes in order to
produce effects in each national system.
The project tests the possibility of using the rules of the Rome I Regulation
to enable the parties to exercise their right to choose the applicable law. The
contract’s effects are therefore split between the effects that produce obligations
between the parties and the in-rem effects of the contract. Law choice can only
concern obligations of the buyer and seller. Law choice can never concern the acquiring
of property rights itself that are governed by the lex rei sitae of the country
of the plot. The law choice is established by a specific clause in the contract of sale
and assures the buyer of compensation for unknown restrictions and violation of
the contract by the seller.
CROBECO is developing a set of rules and protocols. A checklist of protective
clauses and guidelines for the cross-border transfer of rights is currently being
developed in collaboration with Maastricht University’s European Private Law
Institute. As not all European conveyancing and land registration systems are the
same, specific rules will be developed and adapted for each system.
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