The concept of the nation-state has as an essential element the control of territory, legal and political authority over the acquisition, ownership, use and disposition of land. The rapid increase during the 1970s in the pace of foreign 1 investment -with the acquisition of real property as a centerpiece-has stirred new concern for the ability and disability of aliens to invest in and acquire title 2 to the physical territory of a given state. With a variety of factors now stimulating 3 foreign investment in land, increased attention has been given in many countries to the role of the state in controlling, inhibiting or prohibiting investment in real property by aliens. English law long ago established that the alien would be subject to significant 4 disabilities in connection with the ownership of land. The imposition of similar 5 restrictions on aliens is found in the early law of most nation-states. Such disabilities have their roots in the feudal period, and it was not until the eighteenth century that the countries of Continental Europe abandoned the absolute 6 prohibition on succession to real property by aliens. The prohibition was replaced by a tax imposed on aliens who withdrew the property of the state of which the decedent was a citizen. Common Law rules restricting alien succession developed in the thirteenth century.

Originally published in 1993, Urban Land and Property Markets in Germany describes the complex network of regulations and practices governing the operation of the German markets. The book outlines the constitutional structure and framework of the social, economic and geographical context in which the markets operate. The main sections of the book address the legal structures of property, planning, and tax, the registration procedures and transaction charges, market processes, who does what, and what professional titles or other actors in the process to look out for. The book also looks at the development of land and property markets, as one of the most intractable problems faced by post-communist regimes of eastern Europe.

Transactions in land and other real property differ between countries throughout Europe. The transaction procedures reflect formal rules, but they are also normalized through conventions and professional codes of conduct. This complex of technical, legal and economic issues was investigated from the point of view of transaction economics through an ESF-COST supported Action G9 ‘Modeling Real Property Transactions’. The research was performed between 2001 and 2005 by researchers mainly from university departments related to land surveying, real estate management, geo-information sciences and knowledge engineering. This book represents the final outcome of that study. A modeling approach was elaborated and tested on a number of countries (especially Sweden and Slovenia, for which the models are shown in this book in the Unified Modeling Language (UML)). The modeling approach leads to transparency and allows comparison. Nevertheless, the influence of the national and social contexts, and the different perspectives that can be taken, prevent a simple ranking of the studied procedures. For those planning or comparing transaction procedures or parts thereof, the book supplies a tested approach and methodology. But the book eventually warns of simplification in this field full of complex national institutional arrangements.