In his remarkable, path-breaking new book, Peter Sparkes takes stock of the development of a distinctive body of European land law, taking as his starting point the idea that methods of land-holding permitted by a legal system both shape and reflect the attitudes of the land owners and society in general. However it quickly becomes very difficult to test that idea when the society in question is governed by an internal market composed of 30 countries (the EU-27, including Bulgaria and Romania, and the EEA-3), whose property systems differ so markedly and which reflect such widely differing cultures. Yet the internal market has already effected a gradual equalisation and standardisation across Europe as foreign capital spreads to create equality of yield. "We all become better off by joining a larger trading block but the social consequences will be profound: Brits will need to emigrate to the continent to afford a home, Bulgarians will need to make way for them along the Black Sea coast, and title deeds will be reshuffled all over Europe on a giant Monopoly board" writes the author in his preface, before embarking on a dispassionate examination of the beginning of that process of profound change.

The opening chapters are devoted to an explanation of how the internal market has created a substantive European land law. Chapter 3 examines the rise of a distinctive European land law, and the development of conflicts principles applying to recovery of land. Chapters 5 to 9 on the marketing and sale of land focus upon Community competence on consumer protection. The decision to treat land as a product like any other in the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive will have wide ranging and far reaching implications and, apart from marketing of land and of timeshares, other chapters deal with conveyancing, contracting and the emerging market in mortgage credit. The book concludes with a miscellany of conflicts rules which are gradually coalescing and form the elements from which a substantive European land law can be forged. A number of topics which it is not possible to cover in detail (VAT, other taxes, environmental controls and agriculture) are touched on briefly, and the same is true of international aspects of trusts and succession.

1 Land as a European Commodity
Market Culture
Capital Club
Outside the Capital Club
Other Europes
Cross-border Transactions
Capital Freedom
Land as Capital
Land Transactions Nomenclaturised
Movement of Landowners
Factors Generating Movement of Buyers
Business Rights to Buy Land
Workers
Self-supporters
Market Elements
2 Controls on European Buyers
Restrictions and Controls
Military Regions
Second Homes
Agricultural Land and Forests
Direct and Indirect Controls
Justification of Controls
Authorisation and Declaration Schemes
Swiss Controls
3 Towards a European Land Law?
National and European Laws
Immovables
The Site
Selection of Land Law
Property of the European Institutions
Respect for Territoriality
Subsidiarity
Fundamental Rights in the EU
Specific Fundamentals
Convergence
A Substantive Miscellany
Value Added Tax
Single Farm Payment
Special Agricultural Regimes
Dairy
Towards What?
4 Actions Affecting Land
Europeanisation of Actions
European Conflicts Club
Provisional Measures
Exclusive Forum over Land
Trespass Used to Assert Title
Public Registers
Tenancies, Holiday Lets and Timeshares
Personal Actions
5 Marketing Land
Pointillism
Consumption of Land
Unfair Commercial Practices Affecting Land
Doorstep Selling of Land
Distance Rentals
Unfair Marketing Practices
Unfair Advertising and Statements
Internet Advertising (e-Commerce)
Information in an Invitation to Purchase
Information about Distance Contractors
Withdrawal Rights
Credit Cancellation
Remediation and Reform
6 Timeshare
Regulation of Timeshare Marketing
Timeshares and Timeshare-likes
Information
Withdrawal Rights
Timeshare Vehicles
Unregulated Aspects
Cross-border Timesharing
Reform
7 Conveyancing
Conveyancers and Lawyers
Practice Rights and Qualification
Mechanics of Transfer
Registration
Laundering Activity
Confiscation Orders
Conveyancers as Launderers
Conveyancers as Cops
Customer Due Diligence
Reporting
Internet Advertising by Conveyancers
8 Contracts
Advanced E-Signatures
Simple E-Signatures
Buying Land from Websites
Unfair Terms Legislation
Unfairness of Terms
European Contract Law
The Contract/Property Interface
9 Mortgages and Debt
Mortgage Credit
European Mortgage Markets
Information Rights
Consumer Protection
Security
Mortgage Procedures
Primary and Secondary Lending
Secured Rights on Cross-border Insolvency
Main (Europe-wide) Insolvency
Secondary (Territorial) Insolvency
Judgment Debts in the Judgment State
Judgment Debts in the Enforcing State
10 Contract Conflicts
Conflicts and Land Contracts
Property Core
Choice of Site-based Law
Site-based Selection
Non-site Contracts
Choice of Law and Forum
Anti-contractual Claims
Home Court Forum
11 Family Property
Europeanisation of Family Law
Connection to the Family
Family Law
Formality for Testation
Patterns of Testation
Succession
Trust Vehicles
Trust Forum
Trust Law
Interaction of Trust Law and Forum
12 Outro

“This is an original, important and wide-ranging book.” –  Oliver Radley-Gardner, The Law Quarterly Review, Vol 124

“This is a very ambitious, very clever, very detailed, truly ground-breaking yet utterly infuriating book. And, despite becoming occasionally annoyed, this reviewer has learned a great deal from it, and is duly grateful...Even if you disagree with the thesis put forward, you cannot help but learn a great deal. We are all better off for having this material, and these ideas discussed here.” –  Paul Matthews, King's Law Journal, Vol 19, Issue 3

“This book combines in a most original way the discussion of comparative land law within the European Union...a most interesting book which covers many interrelated areas in the context of the property markets in Europe, and it is a very useful reference or at least starting point for those wanting to tackle the heterogeneity of the laws and policies which affect cross-border transfers of land within the European Union.” –  Andreas Rahmatian, The Conveyancer and Property Lawyer, Vol 73, Issue 2

“...a remarkable book on European land law...It is a stunning work of European importance that should be read by any student of property law...The book offers new insights into the law of property seen from a European level (top down) and offers new methodological insights into the study of comparative and especially European property law.” –  Bram Akkermans, Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law, Volume 4