This chapter considers property in land. Property rights in land, compared to property rights in chattels, are not very ‘paradigmatic’ of property rights. Rights in land are much more varied than rights in chattels or most kinds of intangible property. Because of that it is difficult, both historically and theoretically, to identify what ‘ownership’ of land consists of. This is not to say that we cannot apply the tripartite structure of title, to land. But because of its special features, title to land is everywhere adjusted, compromised, straitened, and complicated by a host of surrounding rules, some but not all of which have a public law character. The chapter concludes by arguing that there is no general right to enclose land, but that this is not based on some notion of common ownership of the earth, but on some developed notion of ‘home’.
