Transactions in English Private Law - Einzelansicht

This course considers select aspects of the law concerning core transactions in the English law concerned with property transfers, in particular contracts for the sale of land, property transfers, declarations of trusts, and wills. The predominant focus of the lectures is the safeguarding and realisation of the ‘real’ intention of the disponor in gratuitous transactions.

Lectures will explore how apparently trivial matters, such as requirements of form, have generated doctrinal complexity and exposed competing policy conceptions of how the law should support owners in arranging dispositions of their property. The course will also consider how English law deals with the problem of sham transactions as well as touching upon elements of the law relating to interpretation and vitiation of consent to the transaction.

This course requires sufficient passive English language skills to follow the lectures. (Supporting written material will be made available on Moodle.) The assessment requires either active ability in reading and writing in English (with the assistance of a dictionary) or confidence in speaking and listening in English, depending on whether they choose to take a written or oral assessment.

Students may choose to take either a written or oral assessment for this course.

The written assessment will consist of a two-hour exam. Students will have an additional 15 minutes period for reading the exam paper. Bound printed English-German/German-English dictionaries (or equivalent for other languages) may be used in the assessment, provided they are not legal dictionaries and provided they are not annotated or marked.

Students taking the oral assessment will be examined individually and will be required to answer questions across the range of topics chosen by the student in advance. Questions will be designed to further a dialogue with the student. They will combine both open and closed questions and their exact form will depend on the student's level of knowledge and skills of legal analysis.

This course fulfils the requirement in §16(2) S. 1 Nr 3 ThürJAPO ('Sprachenschein'). It also forms part of the 'International Legal Studies' Certificate programme.