
The Property-Contract Interface
Historical and Theoretical Perspectives
Oxford University Press
Will be published approx. on 30. October 2026
Book
Hardback
400 pages
978-0-19-895198-8 (ISBN)
Description
This collection of essays brings together leading experts with emerging scholars from different common law jurisdictions to deal with foundational questions about the relationship between property and contract. The volume is structured in five parts: forms of property; contract and conveyance; institutions; structure of private law; and theories of contract.
Some essays focus in on specific institutions along the property contract interface, including bailments, leases, security interests, and trusts, as well as the role of contract in property transfer. Others use the lens of property and contract to analyse debt, money, and choses in action. Overall, the essays exemplify the vigour of scholarship in this area and point to further directions for deepening our understanding of the property-contract interface.
Some essays focus in on specific institutions along the property contract interface, including bailments, leases, security interests, and trusts, as well as the role of contract in property transfer. Others use the lens of property and contract to analyse debt, money, and choses in action. Overall, the essays exemplify the vigour of scholarship in this area and point to further directions for deepening our understanding of the property-contract interface.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
ISBN-13
978-0-19-895198-8 (9780198951988)
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
James Penner is Kwa Geok Choo Professor of Property Law at the National University of Singapore. He formerly taught at Brunel University, the London School of Economics, King's College London, and University College London. He is one of the world's leading scholars in the philosophy of property and the law of trusts, and writes more widely in the areas of private law and the philosophy of law. He has been a visiting professor at a number of universities around the world, most recently the University of Toronto, Harvard University and the Centre for Transnational Legal Studies in London.
Irina Sakharova is an Assistant Professor in Commercial Law at Durham University. Her research is situated in private law and legal philosophy, and most centrally in contract law and contract theory. She has published in these areas, including in such journals as Ratio Juris and the Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence. Dr Sakharova earned her MJur degree from the University of Oxford and her PhD at the National University of Singapore. Her PhD thesis, Understanding the Legal Power to Contract, was awarded the Wang Gungwu Medal and Prize for the Best PhD Thesis in the Social Sciences and Humanities.
Henry E. Smith is Fessenden Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, where he directs the Project on the Foundations of Private Law. Previously, Professor Smith taught at the Northwestern University School of Law and was the Fred A. Johnston Professor of Property and Environmental Law at Yale Law School. He has served as the President of the Society for Institutional and Organizational Economics and is the Reporter for the American Law Institute's Fourth Restatement of Property. He has published widely in the areas of property, equity, and private law theory.
Zhong Xing Tan is an Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore, Director of the Sheridan Fellowship Programme, and a member of the Leadership Team at NUS Law. Dr Zhong Xing's research and teaching interests are in contract law, private law and legal theory. His work has been published in general and specialist law journals including the Modern Law Review, Cambridge Law Journal, University of Toronto Law Journal, and the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, and has been cited by apex courts in different jurisdictions. Zhong Xing's awards and recognitions include the Hart Publishing Prize for the best paper by an early career scholar at the Ninth Biennial Conference on the Law of Obligations (2018), and previously, Harvard Law School's Project on the Foundations of Private Law Prize (2017).
Irina Sakharova is an Assistant Professor in Commercial Law at Durham University. Her research is situated in private law and legal philosophy, and most centrally in contract law and contract theory. She has published in these areas, including in such journals as Ratio Juris and the Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence. Dr Sakharova earned her MJur degree from the University of Oxford and her PhD at the National University of Singapore. Her PhD thesis, Understanding the Legal Power to Contract, was awarded the Wang Gungwu Medal and Prize for the Best PhD Thesis in the Social Sciences and Humanities.
Henry E. Smith is Fessenden Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, where he directs the Project on the Foundations of Private Law. Previously, Professor Smith taught at the Northwestern University School of Law and was the Fred A. Johnston Professor of Property and Environmental Law at Yale Law School. He has served as the President of the Society for Institutional and Organizational Economics and is the Reporter for the American Law Institute's Fourth Restatement of Property. He has published widely in the areas of property, equity, and private law theory.
Zhong Xing Tan is an Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore, Director of the Sheridan Fellowship Programme, and a member of the Leadership Team at NUS Law. Dr Zhong Xing's research and teaching interests are in contract law, private law and legal theory. His work has been published in general and specialist law journals including the Modern Law Review, Cambridge Law Journal, University of Toronto Law Journal, and the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, and has been cited by apex courts in different jurisdictions. Zhong Xing's awards and recognitions include the Hart Publishing Prize for the best paper by an early career scholar at the Ninth Biennial Conference on the Law of Obligations (2018), and previously, Harvard Law School's Project on the Foundations of Private Law Prize (2017).
Content
- I. The Nature of Property and Contract
- 1: Rebecca Stone: Private Rights: Artificial But Not Instrumental
- 2: Aditi Bagchi: When Contract Makes Property
- 3: Irina Sakharova: Property, Contract, and Normative Powers
- II. Property, Contract, and the Structure of Private Law
- 4: Henry E. Smith: Combining Property and Contract
- 5: Nick Sage: The Basic Stuff of Private Law
- 6: Robert Chambers: Restrictive Covenants
- 7: Zhong Xing Tan: Bilateral Broadcasting and the Foundations of Private Law
- 8: Richard R. W. Brooks: Towards a Legal Analysis of Externalities
- III. Institutions Along the Property-Contract Interface
- 9: Katy Barnett: Bailment and the 'Three Body Problem'
- 10: Thomas W. Merrill: The Property/Contract Interface: Hybrid Leases
- 11: Lusina Ho: The Nature of the Interest of an Object of Trust or Power
- 12: Lee Pey Woan and Zhang Wei: Intermediate Rights-Bridging the Theory/Doctrine Divide
- IV. Contract and Conveyance
- 13: Catharine MacMillan: Property and Contract in the Development of the Sale of Goods: Views of the Victorians
- 14: Joshua Getzler: Properties of Debt: History and Analysis
- V. Contract, Property, and Beyond
- 15: William Swadling: Are Choses in Action Property?
- 16: Larissa Katz: Having, Doing, Owing
- 17: James Penner: Cash and Credit: Money and the Property-Contract Interface