THE OFFICE OF OWNERSHIP

Abstract

I defend an account of ownership as a legal office, according to which the rights and duties of a given owner are not the rights and duties of some individual person but rather the rights and duties of the office of owner. This view of ownership has several advantages. First, it allows us to manage an apparent conflict between the fact that ownership rights and duties seem to be bilaterally structured and the fact that ownership rights and duties are merely contingently the rights and duties of a given person. Second, the account explains the common law’s distinction between a real covenant and a contract: the covenant is an agreement entered into by the owner as office holder and thus binds future office holders by running with the land; the contract is a merely personal agreement which cannot bind future owners. Third, the account can help to explain some of the borderline cases about what could count as the subject of property rights.