Professor Robert Rennie has been one of the most influential voices in Scots private law over the past thirty years. Highly respected as both an academic and a practitioner, his contribution to the development of property law and practice has been substantial and unique. This volume celebrates his retirement from the Chair of Conveyancing at the University of Glasgow in 2014 with a selection of essays written by his peers and colleagues from the judiciary, academia and legal practice. Each chapter covers a topic of particular interest to Professor Rennie during his career, from the historical development of property law rules through to the latest developments in conveyancing practice and the evolution of the rules of professional negligence. Although primarily Scottish in focus, the contributions will have much of interest to lawyers in any jurisdiction struggling with similar practical problems, particularly those with similar legal roots including the Netherlands and South Africa. As a whole, the collection is highly recommended to students, practitioners and academics. This work was published by Saint Philip Street Press pursuant to a Creative Commons license permitting commercial use. All rights not granted by the work's license are retained by the author or authors.

Professor Robert Rennie has been one of the most influential voices in Scots private law over the past thirty years. Highly respected as both an academic and a practitioner, his contribution to the development of property law and practice has been substantial and unique. This volume celebrates his retirement from the Chair of Conveyancing at the University of Glasgow in 2014 with a selection of essays written by his peers and colleagues from the judiciary, academia and legal practice. Each chapter covers a topic of particular interest to Professor Rennie during his career, from the historical development of property law rules through to the latest developments in conveyancing practice and the evolution of the rules of professional negligence. Although primarily Scottish in focus, the contributions will have much of interest to lawyers in any jurisdiction struggling with similar practical problems, particularly those with similar legal roots including the Netherlands and South Africa. As a whole, the collection is highly recommended to students, practitioners and academics.

Covering the many changes to property law and conveyancing practice driven by the Scottish Parliament in recent years, including its land reform agenda, Conveyancing Practice in Scotland, Eighth Edition is an indispensable guide for residential and commercial property lawyers at all levels. Encompassing both commercial and residential conveyancing, the Eighth Edition of this highly regarded text, has been reviewed and updated throughout to take account of: - evolving and settled practice under the Land Registration etc (Scotland) Act 2012 - the practical effects of the community rights to buy - introduction of the Additional Dwelling Supplement on Land and Buildings Transaction Tax - prospective effects of the proposed Register of Controlled Interests in Land - the Scottish Law Commission proposals for changes to the law relating to title conditions, and heritable securities In addition to the property law aspects, this text also covers the practical and ethical considerations of acting in a conveyancing transaction, such as anti-money laundering procedures and conflicts of interest. Standard missive clauses are examined in detail with reference to their application in practice. Written by practising lawyers with many years of transactional and mentoring experience, this book is the only practical guide to managing conveyancing transactions in Scotland.

This timely book analyses the most significant contemporary developments and trends in property law, including the concept of property rights, the role of property law and property rights in society, and the values they enhance. It examines the effect of property rights on social, economic and cultural development and vice versa, considering the impact of phenomena such as technological innovation, digitalisation and blockchain technology, changes in social and economic organisation and globalisation.

This book offers a new interpretation of German law and politics during the era between the Thirty Years’ War and the French Revolution. Liberal ideas of freedom and equality were prototyped in Germany in property law: through the free disposition of estates, freedom from taxation and other extractions, and free use of paper money. Civil liberty, ideas about equality, and restrictions on arbitrary state power were real, recognized, and meaningful. These freedoms were enjoyed by all classes of Germans. They were thought to have been built atop Germans’ ancient heritage of freedom and a federalist imperial constitution which inspired Montesquieu and the American Founders. Driving these trends were ideas about political economy, enlightened reform, practical problem-solving, as well as forces of supply and demand in everything from the market for books to the market for justice. This book places the story of early modern German freedom close by the side of more familiar stories of England, North America, France, and the Netherlands.

This book explores the rise of a Scottish common law from the twelfth century on despite the absence until around 1500 of a secular legal profession. Key stimuli were the activity of church courts and canon lawyers in Scotland, coupled with the example provided by neighbouring England’s common law. The laity’s legal consciousness arose from exposure to law by way of constant participation in legal processes in court and daily transactions. This experience enabled some to become judges, pleaders in court and transactional lawyers and lay the foundations for an emergent professional group by the end of the medieval period.

The development of private law across the common law world is typically portrayed as a series of incremental steps, each one delivered as a result of judges dealing with marginally different factual circumstances presented to them for determination. This is said to be the common law method. According to this process, change might be assumed to be gradual, almost imperceptible. If this were true, however, then even Darwinian-style evolution – which is subject to major change-inducing pressures, such as the death of the dinosaurs – would seem unlikely in the law, and radical and revolutionary paradigms shifts perhaps impossible. And yet the history of the common law is to the contrary. The legal landscape is littered with quite remarkable revolutionary and evolutionary changes in the shape of the common law. The essays in this volume explore some of the highlights in this fascinating revolutionary and evolutionary development of private law. The contributors expose the nature of the changes undergone and their significance for the future direction of travel. They identify the circumstances and the contexts which might have provided an impetus for these significant changes. The essays range across all areas of private law, including contract, tort, unjust enrichment and property. No area has been immune from development. That fact itself is unsurprising, but an extended examination of the particular circumstances and contexts which delivered some of private law's most important developments has its own special significance for what it might indicate about the shape, and the shaping, of private law regimes in the future.

This book focuses on contemporary problems related to fraud and risk in commercial law. It has been said by some that we are in a 'golden age of fraud'. In part this has been caused by globalisation, technological changes and the financialisation of business. This has resulted in the creation of automated linkages with integrated supply chains and the creation of systemic risks, which have been exacerbated by new forms of intangible assets like tokens and their ease of movement. While regulation has ebbed and flowed given the desire of governments to generate economic growth, as well as the distrust of their coercive powers, the courts have sought to strike a balance between considerations such as commercial certainty and fairness. The book provides an analysis of key contemporary issues on the theme of fraud and risk in commercial law, including: technology and fraud, secondary liability and 'failure to prevent' economic crime, abuse of business entities, insolvency and creditor protection, injunctions and other orders, cross-border issues, the relationship between regulation and private law, and solutions for policy makers.

Property, Trusts and Succession, Fourth Edition provides full coverage of the property, trusts and succession parts of the LLB syllabus in Scotland in one convenient volume. The relevant rules of statute and common law are surveyed and frequent examples used, making this a highly practical and accessible text. The Fourth Edition of this popular text takes account of significant recent developments, including the draft Moveable Transactions (Scotland) Bill and the ongoing land reform agenda. There is a new section on succession to digital assets. The key contents also includes: - Personal and real rights, and types of property - Ownership and how it is transferred - Prescription - Land registration - Possession - Subordinate real rights, including servitudes, real burdens, leases and securities - Proper and improper liferents - Trusts: constitution, administration and termination - Testate succession - Intestate succession - Execution of documents - Human rights - Appendix on the feudal system Whilst aimed primarily at undergraduates, this important title is also a useful source of reference for practitioners seeking a modern introduction to this area of law. George L Gretton is Lord President Reid Professor of Law Emeritus at the University of Edinburgh and a former Scottish Law Commissioner. Andrew J M Steven is Professor of Property Law at the University of Edinburgh and a former Scottish Law Commissioner.