Property Law and Real Estate Commons^™

Real Estate Brokerage: Recent Changes In Relationships And A Proposed Cure, Ronald B. Brown, Joseph M. Grohman, Manuel R. Valcarcel

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Property Law: 1995 Survey Of Florida Law, Ronald B. Brown, Joseph M. Grohman, Manuel R. Valcarcel Iv

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Responsibility, Causation, And The Harm-Benefit Line In Takings Jurisprudence, Glynn S. Lunney Jr

Faculty Scholarship

As one of the guarantees provided in the Bill of Rights, the Fifth Amendment's Compensation Clause restricts government's otherwise largely plenary power over privately-held property rights. While the Compensation Clause does not directly limit government's ability to change, modify, or even eliminate existing privately-held property rights, in certain instances it circumscribes government's ability to force individual property owners to bear the cost of such government-imposed changes. Specifically, for those government-imposed property redistributions found to be "takings" within the meaning of the Compensation Clause, the Fifth Amendment requires federal and state governments to compensate the property holder for the taking, and …

Codifying Property Law In The Process Of Transition: Some Suggestions From Comparative Law And Economics, Ugo Mattei

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Comparative Law And Economics Of Penalty Clauses In Contract, Ugo Mattei

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Distinguishing Between Consensual And Nonconsensual Advantages Of Liability Rules, Ian Ayres, Eric Talley

Faculty Scholarship

Louis Kaplow and Steven Shavell's thoughtful reply to our recent article contains powerful insights about the relative efficiency of liability and property rules. While we are in agreement that liability rules can be more efficient than property rules when transaction costs are low, we disagree about the cause of this liability-rule advantage. Kaplow and Shaveli believe that liability rules hold only a nonconsensual advantage over property rules (i.e., liability rules tend to induce efficient nonconsensual takings). While granting this oftrecognized nonconsensual advantage, we contend that liability rules may also have a consensual advantage in low-transaction-cost settings (i.e., liability rules facilitate …

Property Law: 1994 Survey Of Florida Law, Ronald B. Brown, Joseph M. Grohman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Concept Of Property In The Early Common Law, David J. Seipp

Faculty Scholarship

“There is nothing,” wrote William Blackstone, “which so generally strikes the imagination and engages the affections of mankind, as the right of property.” Property continues to occupy a place of enormous importance in American legal thought. More than just a staple of the first-year law school curriculum, the concept of property guides the application of constitutional doctrines of due process and eminent domain. A grand division between “property rules” and “liability rules” classifies our common law entitlements. Property is a concept of such longstanding importance in our law, of such great inertial momentum, that it has expanded to include nonphysical …

Married Women And Property, Joan C. Williams

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Is Coverture Dead? Beyond A New Theory Of Alimony, Joan C. Williams

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Solomonic Bargaining: Dividing A Legal Entitlement To Facilitate Coasean Trade, Ian Ayres, Eric Talley

Faculty Scholarship

It is a common argument in law and economics that divided ownership can create or exacerbate strategic behavior. For instance, when several persons own the land designated for a proposed stadium, individual sellers may "hold out" for a disproportionate share of the gains from trade. Alternatively, when building a public library would benefit multiple residents, individual buyers may "free ride" on the willingness of others to pay for its construction. Such transaction costs of collective action fall under a variety of analytic rubrics, including the "tragedy of the commons" and the theory of "public goods." Nonetheless, each example of market …

Property Rights: A View From The Trenches, Michael A. Heller

Faculty Scholarship

How do governments create – or in some countries recreate - basic property rights that citizens demand in the transition to a market economy? My first comment, quite briefly, is on the debate within this Symposium on the relationship between constitutional reforms and the emergence of new property regimes. Second, I will comment on the counterintuitive property rights regime that is emerging from the "big bang" – the post-1989 collapse of the old socialist legal order in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union and its replacement with a new, market-oriented system of property rights.

Real Property: 1993 Survey Of Florida Law, Ronald B. Brown

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Social Origins Of Property, Joseph William Singer, Jack M. Beermann

Faculty Scholarship

The takings clause of the United States Constitution requires government to pay compensation when private property is taken for public use.' When government regulates, but does not physically seize, property, the Supreme Court of the United States has had trouble defining when individuals have been deprived of property rights so as to give them a right to compensation. The takings clause serves "to bar Government from forcing some people alone to bear public burdens that, in all fairness and justice, should be borne by the public as a whole."' To determine when a regulation amounts to a "taking" of property …

Real Property: 1992 Survey Of Florida Law, Ronald B. Brown

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Entail In Two Cities: A Comparative Study Of Long Term Leases In Birmingham, England And Baltimore, Maryland 1700-1900, Garrett Power

Faculty Scholarship

Urban planning is often thought of as a conscious collection of governmental choices made as to the shape and social structure of the city. Thoughtful and forward looking public policies are viewed as mapping out the future. Overlooked or understated in this estimation are the less purposeful influences on the urban morphology and city sociology. This paper examines one such influence, land tenure, by taking a comparative look at the residential development of Birmingham, England, and Baltimore, Maryland, between 1700 and 1900. Birmingham and Baltimore both housed their working class populations in densely-packed dwellings with shared party walls. And both …

Parceling Out Land In Baltimore, 1632-1796, Garrett Power

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Constitutional Right Of Religious Exemption: An Historical Perspective, Philip A. Hamburger

Faculty Scholarship

Did late eighteenth-century Americans understand the Free Exercise Clause of the United States Constitution to provide individuals a right of exemption from civil laws to which they had religious objections? Claims of exemption based on the Free Exercise Clause have prompted some of the Supreme Court's most prominent free exercise decisions, and therefore this historical inquiry about a right of exemption may have implications for our constitutional jurisprudence. Even if the Court does not adopt late eighteenth-century ideas about the free exercise of religion, we may, nonetheless, find that the history of such ideas can contribute to our contemporary analysis. …

Social-Republican Property, William H. Simon

Faculty Scholarship

Economic democracy is the idea that the norms of equality and participation that classical liberalism confines to a narrowly defined sphere of government should apply to the sphere of economic life. Economic democracy thus entails a challenge to the classical liberal notion of property. In classical liberalism, property defines a realm of private enjoyment. No particular property right is a prerogative of, or a prerequisite to, citizenship, and the exercise of property rights by those who have them is not assessed in political terms.

One alternative to classical liberalism responsive to the ideal of economic democracy is classical socialism. Classical …

Zero-Sum Madison, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

Has the fabric of American constitutional law been permanently "distorted" by the Framers' preoccupation with protecting private property against redistribution? Jennifer Nedelsky thinks so. In this provocative study of how the idea of property shaped the political thought of the Framers and the institutions they designed, she argues that James Madison's constitutional philosophy was driven by fear that a future propertyless majority would seek to expropriate the holdings of a minority. To combat this danger, Madison sought to create a structure of government that would ensure the dominance of the propertied elite. Madison's obsessive fear of redistribution spread to the …

Hungarian Legal Reform For The Private Sector, Cheryl W. Gray, Rebecca J. Hanson, Michael A. Heller

Faculty Scholarship

Hungary is in the midst of a fundamental transformation toward a market economy. Although Hungary has long been in the forefront of efforts to reform socialism itself, after 1989 the goals of reform moved from market socialism toward capitalism, as the old Communist regime lost power and the idea of widespread private ownership gained acceptance. The legal framework – the "rules of the game – is now being geared toward encouraging, protecting, and rewarding entrepreneurs in the private sector.

This Article describes the evolving legal framework in Hungary in several areas: constitutional, real property, intellectual property, company, foreign investment, contract, …

Real Property: 1991 Survey Of Florida Law, Ronald B. Brown

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Real Property-Florida Supreme Court Survey, Ronald B. Brown

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Real Property Survey, Ronald B. Brown

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

State Control Of Great Lakes Water Diversion, J. David Prince

Faculty Scholarship

This article focuses on the law relevant to the issue of interbasin diversion of Great Lakes water, the policies reflected in that law, and the limitations of the law on such diversions and on the ability of the Great Lakes states to control proposed diversions. It concludes with an argument for regional as opposed to national or state-by-state decision making on the issue of diversions and a suggested mechanism for facilitating such regional decision making.

Creation And Commercial Value: Copyright Protection Of Works Of Information, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

In 1899, Augustine Birrell, a Victorian barrister, lamented: "The question of copyright has, in these latter days, with so many other things, descended into the market-place, and joined the wrangle of contending interests and rival greedinesses." Birrell's remark conveys distaste for those authors who would "realise the commercial value of their wares." But the question of copyright has always been joined with that of commercial value. Indeed, by affording authors limited monopoly protection for their writings, our Constitution relies on wrangling greed to promote the advancement of both creativity and profit. Nonetheless, the distinction Birrell implies between copyrightworthy works of …

Wealth And Property, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

Professor Stephen Munzer's study of property rights is an ambitious work. Drawing on sources as diverse as Hohfeld, Hegel, Locke, civic republicanism, Marx, the classic utilitarians, and Rawls, he seeks to develop a "pluralist" theory of property, one that synthesizes a variety of philosophical perspectives into a single "basic theory" that can be used to assess and promote the reform of different property systems. Like most attempts to achieve a grand philosophical synthesis, however, this one ultimately fails. The most obvious problem is that Munzer's basic theory is too vague and unwieldy to generate determinate answers to the kinds of …

An Update On The Legal Chameleon: Florida's Homestead Exemption And Restrictions, Donna Litman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Unwisdom Of Allowing City Growth To Work Out Its Own Destiny, Garrett Power

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

An Examination Of Real Estate Purchase Options, Ronald B. Brown

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.