University of Leuven Professor presents a lecture at UT

Monday, October 25, 2021

Vincent Sagaert, Full Professor University of Leuven & Director Research Institute for Property Law-Chairman Department of Private Law, presented an online lecture on “ The Codification of Property Law: a Search for Principles and Sustainability in an uncertain era" at the Institute of Comparative Law , Faculty of Law and Political Science.

Vincent Sagaert is a Full Professor at the KU Leuven, the KULAK, and the University of Antwerp. He teaches courses in private law, such as contract law, property law (bachelor and master; Kortrijk, Leuven, and Hasselt), and notarial land law. He was previously also a professor at the KUBrussel (2005-2007) and the University of Antwerp (2003-2016) and a visiting professor at the Université Nationale du Burundi ("Introduction à l'étude du Droit burundais", 2003-2004-2005-2009) and the University of Utrecht (European Property Law, 2007), and was a visiting researcher at Oxford University (Lady Margaret Hall). He has also been a guest professor at Hasselt University since 2010.

In 1997-98 Academic year, he won the A.P.R. Prize( a prize per university for the best legal dissertation within the framework of the master's thesis.), in 2000 and 2001 he won twice the T.P.R. Prize ( the best contribution in the Dutch language by a young author) and in 2001 he won the Ius commune Prize (2001).

Professor Sagaert has more than 20 books and 150 articles. However, his most important works in the field of property law have been written, including Property law in brief(2019: Intersentia) ، Eigendomsvoorbehoud(retention of Title,2015: Kluwer; Mechelen) and Cases, materials, and text on Property Law(2012:Hart publishing).

He is currently the Head of the Institute of Property Law - the University of Leuven, a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Belgian Civil Law, the Journal of Justices for Peace, and the Journal of European Property Law, and the co-editor of the internationally renowned encyclopedia Property and Trust Law.

Belgian legislator has adopted last year the Act reforming the Belgian Property Law, introduced in the new Civil Code as Book 3, upon the draft which Vincent co-drafted with his colleague Pascale Lecocq for the Belgian Minister of Justice.

The meeting was held Monday, October 18, 2021. In this meeting, Professor Sagaert described the history of legislation in Belgian law based on the Napoleonic Code and the need for structural innovations and a change in philosophical attitudes in these regulations. Then, based on the three basic principles of standardization of property rights, transparency of these rights and the sustainability of the property law regime, he explained some provisions of the new law.