Property Law Assignment

Week 14 Assignment By: John Pleasanton Wilmington University When hidden treasure is unearthed, countries have often fought over who owns it. Property law has attempted to solve this as fairly as possible. Four terms that are huge parts of property law are bailment, mislaid property, lost property, and abandoned property. A bailment is defined as a non-ownership transfer of possession. The bailor temporarily lends possession of a good to the bailee. The bailee is then compensated and returns possession of said good. The types of bailments are bailments for the sole benefit of the bailor, bailments for the sole benefit of the bailee, and mutual-benefit bailments. In a bailment for the sole benefit of the bailor, the bailee receives nothing for this transaction. In a bailment for the sole benefit of the bailee, the bailor receives no benefit for this transaction. In a mutual-benefit bailment both parties receive a benefit. Mislaid property is property that has been intentionally left in a certain spot and then forgotten. Since the owner is then likely to return and try to retrieve said property, the finder must hold the property. If the owner does not return within a reasonable amount of time then the property becomes the property of the owner of the location. Lost property is property that the owner has lost because of negligence. When the owner of a property losses possession of said property by accident or involuntarily and the owner doesn’t know it, then the property is lost property. It is only lost property if the possession of the property is lost unintentionally or involuntarily. The finder of lost property can claim ownership against anyone but the original owner. Property that has been intentionally left by an owner is abandoned property. The owner of abandoned property loses all rights to the property. The finder can claim all rights to this property. Real property may not be abandoned. The sunken ship creates a big problem. Who the property should go to will likely be debated for years to come with the final answer being unsatisfactory to many. The ship is certainly not a bailment since Spain never had any intention of giving the U.S. the ship. The ship was not mislaid either. The ship was not sunk intentionally by Spain for retrieval at a later date. Since the ship was not abandoned intentionally it is not abandoned property either. There can be a claim that the ship is lost property for Spain. The country involuntarily lost the ship thus passing the lost property test. One major source of concern for this would be the time-frame. Spain had plenty of time to try to reclaim the ship, but never made any efforts to do so until it was found with billions of dollars of riches. Spain could also argue back that it had forgotten about it since it was so many years ago. This will be a complicated international issue that will need to be handled with great care.