What Is the Basic Concept of Property in Common Law Countries?

Property refers to something which can be owned and the rights involved in owning an asset. Property can be classified as either real property which means land, fixtures and leaseholds. There is also personal property which means all property which is not real property. Finally, there is intellectual property which means copyright, designs, patents and trademarks. The expression is real and personal property of everyday business words with a long history. They come from a kind of court action that a person used in the Middle Ages who was wrongfully deprified of real or personal property. A landowner stripped of man took legal action to recover the land. The Latin word for thing is res and the action was taken in action in rem , later known as a real action. A person deprived of goods and she tells my not to able to recover the asset itself because it might have been destroyed. The person would suit a wrongdoer personally for damages in contract or tort, without necessarily trying to recover the property itself. The legal action taken is an action in personam , or a personal action.

Property which could be reclaimed by real action gradually came to be called real property and other property came to be called personal property. Real and personal property come in many sizes, shapes and forms. Articles of personal property can be divided into two classes. Chattels personal, which are movable, tangible articles of property. And Chattels real which interests in land less than Freehold, such as leaseholds. There may be property rights over nonphysical and non-tangible property, such as shares and benefits under a contract, and so the law provides another classification of personal property which includes choses in possession which is tangible physical property and choses in action, which is intangible property. There are also two types of legal choses in action which include contracts, agreements, arrangements, annuities, shares in a company, securities and other debts, negotiable instruments such as checks, patterns and designs, copyright and trademarks, business and trade names and anything else which is registered under various statutes such as business names, associations incorporation and the corporations legislation in Australia. Property law is at the heart of the legal system and was one of the first areas of law to develop. This is because property rights are an essential part of the social foundation of our society.

The ownership of this type of asset in our legal system is complex, because a person may owe this type of asset without possessing it, and a person may possess this asset without owning it. The owner is the person entitled to all legal rights over the asset, and the owner can transfer the asset to another person. The owner has title to the asset, and can prove title by showing a chain of title back to an unchallengeable beginning such as the Crown or Torrens title registration real estate. The owner has a proprietary interest in the real or personal asset. This may be a legal interest or an equitable interest.