National Reports On The Transfer Of Movables In Europe: England And Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Cyprus

National Reports on the Transfer of Movables in Europe National Reports on the Transfer of Movables in Europe Volume 2: England and Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Cyprus edited by Wolfgang Faber / Brigitta Lurger Schriften zur Europäischen Rechtswissenschaft / European Legal Studies / Etudes juridiques européennes Band 11 / Volume 11 / Volume 11 European Legal Studies Institute, Osnabrück Molengraaff Institute for Private Law, Utrecht Amsterdam Institute for Private Law Institute of European and Comparative Law, Oxford Institut für Zivilrecht, Ausländisches und Internationales Privatrecht, Graz Schriften zur Europäischen Rechtswissenschaft / European Legal Studies / Etudes juridiques européennes herausgegeben im European Legal Studies Institute, Osnabrück von Christian von Bar im Molengraaff Institute for Private Law, Utrecht von Ewoud Hondius im Amsterdam Institute for Private Law von Martijn W. Hesselink im Institute of European and Comparative Law, Oxford von Stefan Vogenauer im Institut für Zivilrecht, Ausländisches und Internationales Privatrecht, Graz von Brigitta Lurger This series of national reports is published with the financial support of: Bundesministerium für Wissenschaft und Forschung (Vienna); Swiss Institute of Comparative Law (Lausanne); Land Salzburg; Evers-Marcic-Stiftung an der Rechtswissenschaftlichen Fakultät Salzburg. ISBN 978-3-86653-096-6 The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. © 2009 by sellier. european law publishers GmbH, Munich. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the publisher. Design: Sandra Sellier, Munich. Production: Karina Hack, Munich. Typeface: Goudy Old Style and Goudy Sans from Linotype. Printing and binding: AZ Druck und Datentechnik GmbH, Kempten. Printed on acid-free, non-ageing paper. Printed in Germany. Preface This is the second volume of a series of national reports on basic issues concerning the acquisition and loss of ownership of movable assets. The series is planned to cover 27 European legal systems, distributed over six volumes, and appears as a by-product of the research activities of the Graz & Salzburg working group ‘Transfer of Movables’ within the ‘Study Group on a European Civil Code’.1 Starting with general property law issues like the concepts of ownership and possession employed in the respective legal systems, and the related means of protection, the reports primarily deal with the ‘derivative’ transfer of ownership, but extend to good faith acquisition from a non-owner, acquisitive prescription, processing and commingling, and further related issues. Corresponding to the working group’s task within the Study Group, the reports are generally restricted to movable assets and basically leave aside fiduciary transfers, such as transfers for security purposes. After all, they do, however, not only cover mere property law issues, but also much of the related law of obligations, enforcement law and insolvency law – in a generally accessible language, i.e. English.2 This second volume covers European common law countries and mixed legal systems, reflecting the numerous interactions between the legal developments in these countries. Literature and abbreviations are listed in common tables at the end of this volume. The texts of statutory provisions discussed in this book can largely be obtained via internet.3 Publishing the whole series of national reports would not be possible without generous support by a number of institutions. Financial support has been given by the Austrian Ministry of Science