European property law and the demands of electronic conveyancing: a ‘property in the margins’ perspective

Abstract

Electronic conveyancing has been lauded as a ‘revolutionary’ development in land law systems across the world. To many conveyancers and policy makers, concerned with reducing costs, greater speed etc., electronic conveyancing represents fantastic promise. Yet, expectations have adjusted in response to a global financial crisis, limitations on technological innovations and a general loss of confidence in the ability of electronic conveyancing to deliver the promised revolution. This chapter advances the argument that electronic conveyancing is not, in terms of the reforms it has provoked of land and conveyancing law, a neutral development. Rather, the development of electronic conveyancing, particularly in common law countries, has led to structural changes to the underlying legal framework that has resulted in a redistribution of property rights. It is a recurring theme that to reap the ‘fruits’ of electronic conveyancing, certain property rights must be preferred over those property rights in the margins. In particular, this chapter outlines how the preference for dynamic security and the subversion of informally acquired property rights has become a common theme in both England and Ireland. The chapter will illustrate this by reference to the treatment of adverse possession and easements in English law, as well as the purported extension of overreaching into Irish land law. The chapter goes on to consider how the ‘redistributive’ quality associated with the development of electronic conveyancing sits within two emerging spheres of European property law – the European Union and the European Convention on Human Rights.

More information

Identifiers

ORCID for Mark Jordan: orcid.org/0000-0003-1901-1255

Catalogue record

Export record