Concept of Ownership
- Plena in re potestas
- Power to do as they please with property owned within limited imposed by law
- Never been absolute or limitless
- Most complete real right that a legal subject can have regarding a thing
- Gives owner complete and absolute entitlements to a thing
- Subject to objective law and right of others (limited real rights and personal rights
(1) For you to be the owner of a thing means that, in principle (in theory,
potentially), you do (could) have complete control (power) over that thing, and this
in turn means that you do (could) have all of the following entitlements (powers) in
respect of that thing: to use it, to enjoy its fruits, to consume and destroy it, to
possess it, to dispose of (alienate) it, to reclaim it from anyone who unlawfully
possesses it (vindicate it), and to resist any unlawful invasion of it.
(2) However, for you to be the owner of a thing does not, in practice, mean this: on
the one hand, because the various entitlements (powers) in respect of that thing
which are listed in the first proposition could be, and invariably are, limited (by the
law and by the limited real rights and personal rights of others); on the other hand,
because you remain the owner of the thing, these limitations on your entitlements
(powers) in respect of it notwithstanding.
(3) Possibly, for you to be the owner of a thing means also that, if a limitation on any
of the entitlements (powers) in respect of that thing which are listed in the first
proposition is removed, you automatically recover as much of that entitlement
(power) as was so limited.
- Honoré’s account of ownership:
- (1) the right to possess;
- (2) the right to use;
- (3) the right to manage;
- (4) the right to the income;
- (5) the right to the capital;
- (6) the right to security;
- (7) the right of transmissibility;
- (8) the right of absence of term;
- (9) the prohibition of harmful use;
- (10) liability to execution; and
- (11) the residuary character.
- Claims, liberties and powers