The Law of Property財產(chǎn)法
The old common law1 was preeminently the law of real property; and the distinction between "real property" and "personal property3" was a crucial one.
Generally speaking, real property means real estate -1and and buildings —— but it also includes such things as growing crops. Everything else —— money, stocks and bonds, jewelry, cars, carloads of lumber, IOUs, bank deposits- is personal property. We all have a stake in real estate, since we all live somewhere; and we work, study, and travel somewhere, too. Everyone is a renter or an owner, or lives with renters or owners. But for most of us, that as far as the law is concerned the word property means primarily real property; personal property is of minor importance.
Actually, personal property is legally a minor field. There is no single, special field of law devoted to personal property. Personal property is what contract law, commercial law, and bankruptcy law —— yes, and torts, too —— are all about. But there are so many special rilles about real estate that it makes sense to treat this as a separate field of law.
Property law is still one of the fundamental branches of law, and real estate is a significant branch of law practice. Yet property law is a mere shadow of its former self, legal speaking. In fact, one of the major developments in our system, if you take the long view, is the relative decline of real property law. In medieval England, it would have only been a slight exaggeration to say that land law was the law of the land. When Blackstone published his "Commentaries“ midway through the eighteenth century, one whole volume was devoted to land law. A modern Blackstone would shrink the topic to a fraction of this bulk —— 5 or 10 percent, at most, of the total law.
Medieval England lived under a feudal system. Power and jurisdiction —— the cornerstones of wealth and position in society were based on land and land alone. The "lord" was a person who held an estate —— a person with ownership, mastery, control over land. A person without land was a person with no real stake in affairs of state. The common law, as the royal law courts expounded it had little to say to men and women without land, who were the majority of the English population. In America, at one time, only persons who had interests in land were entitled to vote or hold office. The New York constitution of 1777, for example, restricted the right to vote for state senators to men who owned "freeholds" with $100 or more, free and clear of debt （Article X） all this, of course, has ended; land is only one form of wealth. A great and powerful family is one that controls mighty enterprises, rather than one that rules vast estates.
Property law still covers a rich and varied group of subject. To begin with, it asks. What does it mean to "own" land? How can I get title to land and how can I dispose of it legally? There are issues about deeds, joint ownership, and land records and registration; and problems of land finance, including rules about mortgages and foreclosures. There is the law of "nuisance", which restricts me from using my land in such a way as to hurt my neighbors, pouring smoke or sending bad smells onto his land, for example. There are the law of "easements" and the exotic law of "covenants" （especially those that "run with the land"）: these deal with rights a person might have in his neighbor's land —— rights to drive a car up his driveway, to walk across his lawn, or to keep him from taking in boarders. These are not rights of ownership; rather they are "servitudes" —— restrictions or exceptions to the owner's rights, in favor of those another.
The common law was ingenious in carving up rights to land into various complex segments called "estates". These could be either time segments or space segments. A "life estate" （my right to live in a certain house, for example, until I die）, is a time segment; so is a three-year lease of a farm or apartment house. Space segments include air rights （the right to build on top of certain property） and mineral rights （the right to dig underneath it）. Nowadays, the condominium is also popular; I can own a slice of some building thirty stories above the ground. The common law was also quite ingenious in devising forms of common or joint ownership, with subtle technical differences between them.
There are also all sorts of "future interests" known to the common law. Suppose I leave my house to my sister for life, and then to any of her children who might be alive when she dies. The children have a future interest; that is, the time they will get the house is postponed to some far-off date. But the future event is certain to happen, and thus the future interest can have value and reality now, while my sister is very much alive. The law of future interests developed in a most gnarled and complicated way. Its intricacies drove generations of law students to despair.
Another important, fairly new, branch of property law is the law of "land use controls". It deals with the limit imposed on what people can do with their property. This was an issue in the law of nuisance, but modern controls go far beyond this. Zoning is a familiar type of land use restriction. Zoning ordinances date from about the time of the First World War; they are now almost universal in cities and villages. Zoning ordinances divide towns into zones designated for different uses. If my neighborhood is "zoned" residential, I cannot build a factory or run a restaurant on my property. If the zone is restricted to single-family dwellings, I cannot even run a rooming house or rent out apartments.
譯文
舊的英美法最杰出的部分是對不動產(chǎn)的規(guī)定，而且其關(guān)鍵是區(qū)別了不動產(chǎn)與動產(chǎn)?？偟恼f來，不動產(chǎn)是指房地產(chǎn)——土地和建筑物，但它也包括諸如正在生長的農(nóng)作物之類的東西。其余的東西——金錢、股票和債券、珠寶、汽車、貨車所載的木材、借據(jù)、銀行存款——是動產(chǎn)。在房產(chǎn)方面我們有共同利益，因為我們都住在某個地方，我們也在某地工作、學習和旅游。每個人都是出租人或所有人，或與出租人、所有人住在一起。但是對我們大多數(shù)人來說，動產(chǎn)和不動產(chǎn)是兩回事。雖然看上去有點怪，但就法律而言，單詞“財產(chǎn)”主要是指不動產(chǎn)，動產(chǎn)是次要的。
確實，動產(chǎn)在法律上是次要的領(lǐng)域。沒有一個單一的、專門的部門法是專用于動產(chǎn)的。動產(chǎn)是合同法、商法和破產(chǎn)法還有侵權(quán)法等涉及到的問題。但是關(guān)于不動產(chǎn)卻有很多專門的法規(guī)，所以完全可以把它看作一個單獨的法律領(lǐng)域。
財產(chǎn)法仍然是基本的部門法之一，而不動產(chǎn)是法律實務(wù)的一個重要分支。從法律上講，財產(chǎn)法僅是其前身的翻版。事實上，如果從長遠看，我們的法律制度的主要發(fā)展之一就是不動產(chǎn)法的相對衰落。在中世紀的英國，將土地法稱為土地的法律也只是稍微有點夸張。當布萊克斯通在18世紀中葉發(fā)表他的《英格蘭法釋義》時，其中整整一卷是闡述土地法的?，F(xiàn)代版的布萊克斯通《英格蘭法釋義》將此內(nèi)容壓縮至一小部分，最多占整個法律的5％或10％。
中世紀的英國生活在封建制度下，權(quán)力與司法權(quán)——這個顯示社會財富和地位的標志是完全建立在擁有土地之上的。“封建領(lǐng)主”是擁有地產(chǎn)的人，他擁有土地的所有權(quán)、處分權(quán)和控制權(quán)。沒有土地的人在國家事務(wù)中也沒有真正的相關(guān)利益。在英美法中，正如皇室法院所闡述的，沒有土地的男人和女人是沒有發(fā)言權(quán)的，而這些人占了英國人口的絕大多數(shù)。在美國，曾經(jīng)有一段時間，只有對土地有相關(guān)利益的人才有資格選舉或任公職。如1777年的紐約憲法規(guī)定擁有100美元以上的不動產(chǎn)、沒有債務(wù)的人才有資格當選為州參議員（第10條）。當然，所有這些已經(jīng)結(jié)束。土地只是財富的一種形式。富有的家族是那些控制大企業(yè)。的，而不是控制大量地產(chǎn)的家族。
財產(chǎn)法還涵蓋了一組豐富而不同的主題。開始討論之前，先問幾個問題：“擁有”土地指什么?如何能獲得土地的所有權(quán)以及如何合法地處分它?有些問題是關(guān)于契約、共同所有權(quán)、土地檔案和注冊，以及土地金融問題的，包括抵押和取消抵押品贖回權(quán)規(guī)則。“妨害行為”法限制所有權(quán)人用下列方法使用他的土地，如傷害他的鄰居、將煙霧或難聞的氣味噴放到他人的土地上。有規(guī)定“在他人土地上的通行權(quán)”法和外國的“契約”法（尤其是那些經(jīng)營土地的）：這些法規(guī)規(guī)定人們在鄰居土地上可能有的權(quán)利——開車駛過他的車道、穿越他的草坪或阻止他接收寄宿人的權(quán)利。這些不是所有權(quán)，而是地役權(quán)——有利于他人對所有人權(quán)利的限制或例外。
英美法將土地權(quán)巧妙地分割成多個復雜的所謂“地產(chǎn)”的部分。這些可以是時間部分或空間部分?！敖K身地產(chǎn)”（如我住在某間房子直到我死的權(quán)利）是一個時間部分，對農(nóng)場或公寓的三年出租也是時間部分。空間部分包括空間所有權(quán)（在某個財產(chǎn)之上造房子的權(quán)利）和采礦權(quán)（在地下挖掘的權(quán)利）。目前，共同擁有也是很流行的，我可以擁有30層樓的部分房屋。英美法在設(shè)計公共或共有所有權(quán)的形式上是非常靈活的，兩者間在法律意義上有微妙的差異。
對于英美法還有各種眾所周知的“未來權(quán)益”。假如我將我的房子終身留給我妹妹，然后她死后留給她活著的任何孩子。孩子們有未來權(quán)益，也就是說，他們得到房子的時間將被推遲到某個遙遠的日期。但是未來的事件是肯定要發(fā)生的，因而未來權(quán)益現(xiàn)在是有價值并且現(xiàn)實的，雖然我妹妹還活著。未來權(quán)益法的發(fā)展形式多樣、錯綜復雜。它的紛繁難懂曾使幾代法學院學生絕望。
財產(chǎn)法的另一個重要而又非常新的分支是“土地使用控制”法。它應(yīng)對的是強行限制人們處置其財產(chǎn)的權(quán)利。這是一個“妨害行為”法的問題，但現(xiàn)代的控制已遠遠超過了這些，區(qū)域劃定是人人皆知的土地使用限制的類型。區(qū)域劃定法令起源于第一次世界大戰(zhàn)，如今幾乎在城市和鄉(xiāng)村普遍使用。區(qū)域劃定法令將城鎮(zhèn)劃分為確定不同用途的地區(qū)。如果我的街坊是被劃定為居民區(qū)，我就不能在我的財產(chǎn)上建造工廠或開飯店。如果這個區(qū)域限定為家庭居住區(qū)，我甚至不能經(jīng)營旅館或出租公寓。
The old common law1 was preeminently the law of real property; and the distinction between "real property" and "personal property3" was a crucial one.
Generally speaking, real property means real estate -1and and buildings —— but it also includes such things as growing crops. Everything else —— money, stocks and bonds, jewelry, cars, carloads of lumber, IOUs, bank deposits- is personal property. We all have a stake in real estate, since we all live somewhere; and we work, study, and travel somewhere, too. Everyone is a renter or an owner, or lives with renters or owners. But for most of us, that as far as the law is concerned the word property means primarily real property; personal property is of minor importance.
Actually, personal property is legally a minor field. There is no single, special field of law devoted to personal property. Personal property is what contract law, commercial law, and bankruptcy law —— yes, and torts, too —— are all about. But there are so many special rilles about real estate that it makes sense to treat this as a separate field of law.
Property law is still one of the fundamental branches of law, and real estate is a significant branch of law practice. Yet property law is a mere shadow of its former self, legal speaking. In fact, one of the major developments in our system, if you take the long view, is the relative decline of real property law. In medieval England, it would have only been a slight exaggeration to say that land law was the law of the land. When Blackstone published his "Commentaries“ midway through the eighteenth century, one whole volume was devoted to land law. A modern Blackstone would shrink the topic to a fraction of this bulk —— 5 or 10 percent, at most, of the total law.
Medieval England lived under a feudal system. Power and jurisdiction —— the cornerstones of wealth and position in society were based on land and land alone. The "lord" was a person who held an estate —— a person with ownership, mastery, control over land. A person without land was a person with no real stake in affairs of state. The common law, as the royal law courts expounded it had little to say to men and women without land, who were the majority of the English population. In America, at one time, only persons who had interests in land were entitled to vote or hold office. The New York constitution of 1777, for example, restricted the right to vote for state senators to men who owned "freeholds" with $100 or more, free and clear of debt （Article X） all this, of course, has ended; land is only one form of wealth. A great and powerful family is one that controls mighty enterprises, rather than one that rules vast estates.
Property law still covers a rich and varied group of subject. To begin with, it asks. What does it mean to "own" land? How can I get title to land and how can I dispose of it legally? There are issues about deeds, joint ownership, and land records and registration; and problems of land finance, including rules about mortgages and foreclosures. There is the law of "nuisance", which restricts me from using my land in such a way as to hurt my neighbors, pouring smoke or sending bad smells onto his land, for example. There are the law of "easements" and the exotic law of "covenants" （especially those that "run with the land"）: these deal with rights a person might have in his neighbor's land —— rights to drive a car up his driveway, to walk across his lawn, or to keep him from taking in boarders. These are not rights of ownership; rather they are "servitudes" —— restrictions or exceptions to the owner's rights, in favor of those another.
The common law was ingenious in carving up rights to land into various complex segments called "estates". These could be either time segments or space segments. A "life estate" （my right to live in a certain house, for example, until I die）, is a time segment; so is a three-year lease of a farm or apartment house. Space segments include air rights （the right to build on top of certain property） and mineral rights （the right to dig underneath it）. Nowadays, the condominium is also popular; I can own a slice of some building thirty stories above the ground. The common law was also quite ingenious in devising forms of common or joint ownership, with subtle technical differences between them.
There are also all sorts of "future interests" known to the common law. Suppose I leave my house to my sister for life, and then to any of her children who might be alive when she dies. The children have a future interest; that is, the time they will get the house is postponed to some far-off date. But the future event is certain to happen, and thus the future interest can have value and reality now, while my sister is very much alive. The law of future interests developed in a most gnarled and complicated way. Its intricacies drove generations of law students to despair.
Another important, fairly new, branch of property law is the law of "land use controls". It deals with the limit imposed on what people can do with their property. This was an issue in the law of nuisance, but modern controls go far beyond this. Zoning is a familiar type of land use restriction. Zoning ordinances date from about the time of the First World War; they are now almost universal in cities and villages. Zoning ordinances divide towns into zones designated for different uses. If my neighborhood is "zoned" residential, I cannot build a factory or run a restaurant on my property. If the zone is restricted to single-family dwellings, I cannot even run a rooming house or rent out apartments.
譯文
舊的英美法最杰出的部分是對不動產(chǎn)的規(guī)定，而且其關(guān)鍵是區(qū)別了不動產(chǎn)與動產(chǎn)?？偟恼f來，不動產(chǎn)是指房地產(chǎn)——土地和建筑物，但它也包括諸如正在生長的農(nóng)作物之類的東西。其余的東西——金錢、股票和債券、珠寶、汽車、貨車所載的木材、借據(jù)、銀行存款——是動產(chǎn)。在房產(chǎn)方面我們有共同利益，因為我們都住在某個地方，我們也在某地工作、學習和旅游。每個人都是出租人或所有人，或與出租人、所有人住在一起。但是對我們大多數(shù)人來說，動產(chǎn)和不動產(chǎn)是兩回事。雖然看上去有點怪，但就法律而言，單詞“財產(chǎn)”主要是指不動產(chǎn)，動產(chǎn)是次要的。
確實，動產(chǎn)在法律上是次要的領(lǐng)域。沒有一個單一的、專門的部門法是專用于動產(chǎn)的。動產(chǎn)是合同法、商法和破產(chǎn)法還有侵權(quán)法等涉及到的問題。但是關(guān)于不動產(chǎn)卻有很多專門的法規(guī)，所以完全可以把它看作一個單獨的法律領(lǐng)域。
財產(chǎn)法仍然是基本的部門法之一，而不動產(chǎn)是法律實務(wù)的一個重要分支。從法律上講，財產(chǎn)法僅是其前身的翻版。事實上，如果從長遠看，我們的法律制度的主要發(fā)展之一就是不動產(chǎn)法的相對衰落。在中世紀的英國，將土地法稱為土地的法律也只是稍微有點夸張。當布萊克斯通在18世紀中葉發(fā)表他的《英格蘭法釋義》時，其中整整一卷是闡述土地法的?，F(xiàn)代版的布萊克斯通《英格蘭法釋義》將此內(nèi)容壓縮至一小部分，最多占整個法律的5％或10％。
中世紀的英國生活在封建制度下，權(quán)力與司法權(quán)——這個顯示社會財富和地位的標志是完全建立在擁有土地之上的。“封建領(lǐng)主”是擁有地產(chǎn)的人，他擁有土地的所有權(quán)、處分權(quán)和控制權(quán)。沒有土地的人在國家事務(wù)中也沒有真正的相關(guān)利益。在英美法中，正如皇室法院所闡述的，沒有土地的男人和女人是沒有發(fā)言權(quán)的，而這些人占了英國人口的絕大多數(shù)。在美國，曾經(jīng)有一段時間，只有對土地有相關(guān)利益的人才有資格選舉或任公職。如1777年的紐約憲法規(guī)定擁有100美元以上的不動產(chǎn)、沒有債務(wù)的人才有資格當選為州參議員（第10條）。當然，所有這些已經(jīng)結(jié)束。土地只是財富的一種形式。富有的家族是那些控制大企業(yè)。的，而不是控制大量地產(chǎn)的家族。
財產(chǎn)法還涵蓋了一組豐富而不同的主題。開始討論之前，先問幾個問題：“擁有”土地指什么?如何能獲得土地的所有權(quán)以及如何合法地處分它?有些問題是關(guān)于契約、共同所有權(quán)、土地檔案和注冊，以及土地金融問題的，包括抵押和取消抵押品贖回權(quán)規(guī)則。“妨害行為”法限制所有權(quán)人用下列方法使用他的土地，如傷害他的鄰居、將煙霧或難聞的氣味噴放到他人的土地上。有規(guī)定“在他人土地上的通行權(quán)”法和外國的“契約”法（尤其是那些經(jīng)營土地的）：這些法規(guī)規(guī)定人們在鄰居土地上可能有的權(quán)利——開車駛過他的車道、穿越他的草坪或阻止他接收寄宿人的權(quán)利。這些不是所有權(quán)，而是地役權(quán)——有利于他人對所有人權(quán)利的限制或例外。
英美法將土地權(quán)巧妙地分割成多個復雜的所謂“地產(chǎn)”的部分。這些可以是時間部分或空間部分?！敖K身地產(chǎn)”（如我住在某間房子直到我死的權(quán)利）是一個時間部分，對農(nóng)場或公寓的三年出租也是時間部分。空間部分包括空間所有權(quán)（在某個財產(chǎn)之上造房子的權(quán)利）和采礦權(quán)（在地下挖掘的權(quán)利）。目前，共同擁有也是很流行的，我可以擁有30層樓的部分房屋。英美法在設(shè)計公共或共有所有權(quán)的形式上是非常靈活的，兩者間在法律意義上有微妙的差異。
對于英美法還有各種眾所周知的“未來權(quán)益”。假如我將我的房子終身留給我妹妹，然后她死后留給她活著的任何孩子。孩子們有未來權(quán)益，也就是說，他們得到房子的時間將被推遲到某個遙遠的日期。但是未來的事件是肯定要發(fā)生的，因而未來權(quán)益現(xiàn)在是有價值并且現(xiàn)實的，雖然我妹妹還活著。未來權(quán)益法的發(fā)展形式多樣、錯綜復雜。它的紛繁難懂曾使幾代法學院學生絕望。
財產(chǎn)法的另一個重要而又非常新的分支是“土地使用控制”法。它應(yīng)對的是強行限制人們處置其財產(chǎn)的權(quán)利。這是一個“妨害行為”法的問題，但現(xiàn)代的控制已遠遠超過了這些，區(qū)域劃定是人人皆知的土地使用限制的類型。區(qū)域劃定法令起源于第一次世界大戰(zhàn)，如今幾乎在城市和鄉(xiāng)村普遍使用。區(qū)域劃定法令將城鎮(zhèn)劃分為確定不同用途的地區(qū)。如果我的街坊是被劃定為居民區(qū)，我就不能在我的財產(chǎn)上建造工廠或開飯店。如果這個區(qū)域限定為家庭居住區(qū)，我甚至不能經(jīng)營旅館或出租公寓。