LAW AND POLITICS

Law and Politics

Law and Politics

Introduction

Property is the right to possess, enjoy or use a determinant thing, and includes the right of excluding others from doing the same. The concept of ownership or property has no single or widely accepted definition. Like any other concept it has great weight in public discourse and the popular usage varies broadly. Property is frequently conceived as a 'bundle of rights and obligations.' Property is stressed as not a relationship between people and things, but a relationship between people with regard to things. It is often conceptualized that property is the rights of 'ownership'.

Analysis

In common law property is divided into real property, which is the interests in land and improvements there, and personal property, which are interests in anything other than real property. Personal property is divided into tangible property (such as a bike, car and clothse), and intangible property (such as bonds and stocks), which also includes intellectual property (copyrights, trademarks etc) (Michael Bridge, 1993). The modern property rights conceive of possession and ownership as belonging to legal individuals, even if the individual is not a real person. Hence, governments, corporations and other collective forms of ownership are shown in terms of individual ownership. Property rights can be found in the oldest laws written, and equate the expectation of use or profit to some payment from the very beginning. Modern property rights can be said to begin with the transition from ownership by entities as being the primary form of property right, to the theory that property rights are to promote the general good, and specifically encourage economic development and utilization of property (Judith Bray, 2003).

Property is usually thought of in terms of a bundle of rights as defined and protected by the local sovereignty. The bundle of rights theory is a common way of explaining how rights in property are held. It is a theory which is commonly used to explain how a property can simultaneously be "owned" in some sense by multiple parties. For example, a husband and wife can be owners of real property that is also encumbered by a mortgage and a mechanics lien. Bundle of rights is a theory and teaching tool, and thus is not subject to being either true or false Ownership, however, does not necessarily equate with sovereignty (Chris Turner, 2004).

If ownership gave supreme authority it would be sovereignty, not ownership. ...