Reform of Belgian property law
In the Book 3 "Goods" of the Belgian Civil Code the main goal of the legislator was to better structure, modernise and integrate the law on goods into a single code. Moreover, the new law on goods had to be functional, useful and flexible. Time will show whether the new Book 3 meets these goals. It’s looking promising anyhow.
Book 3 "Goods" provides us with a set of rules with a new - sometimes delicate - balance between freedom of contract and legal certainty. The law came into force on 1 September 2021 and is applicable to new situations and contracts from that date. However, parties may choose to make it applicable to facts and agreements dating from before that date.
On this page you will find articles detailing the focus points of Book 3. They are composed of a summary of the focus points but also of infographics created in collaboration with Wolters Kluwer as well as the recording of our webinars.
News
Infographics
Together with the global provider of information Wolters Kluwer, we developed a series of one pagers on the main topics of the reform of property law in Belgium.
Apart of the overview of the main directives of the reform, the topics covered are:
- usufruct (new duration rules and cooperation between usufructuary and bare owner)
- building rights (introduction of the three-dimensional character of property or volume property and new duration rules)
- long term lease (new duration rules and deletion of the payment obligation)
- easement (easements may under conditions be established between two parcels of land belonging to the same owner)
These handy schemes will not only help you to remember the main changes in legislation that was almost 200 years old, but also to understand which opportunities the new property law opens for the real estate sector.
