Property Equity and trust Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Property Equity and trust - Essay Example Most civilizations are moving away from the government-sponsored tenure systems. This change means that the government initiatives to provide the legally binding property rights fail to meet the needs of the locals. This paper discusses the factors that contribute to the changes in legal property ownership and the implications of such changes on the socio-economic and legal systems. For the purpose of this paper, a property is defined as either immobile, fixed assets or mobile assets that can be valued in economic terms and that which provides a sense of wealth to the owner. Property rights define the control that particular individuals in the society have over assets, the profits gained from the assets and the residual rights over such property. An ideal property right must be secure and easily defensible within the court system. The security the individuals obtain from property rights is subject to the stability and predictability of such rights. However, there are various informal constraints to legal property ownership such as gender definitions and assignments. These informal limitations inevitably affect legal access to the property since they are not flexible or responsive to formal changes (Engels 112). It is evident that the socio-cultural ways are not bound to change completely at once despite the economic pressures from formal sectors such as gender equity and affirmative action to improve the property access rights of the females. The formal laws are antagonistic to the informal property rights resulting in instability of such formal rights. Due to the instability, individuals have opted to a privatized property ownership, which offers comparatively stable property ownership rights. Taking the example of the land ownership in Africa, it can be determined that the imposition of formal private property rights by the government is sometimes conflict