Present and Future of Real and Personal Security

In: European Review of Private Law, Band 11, Heft 5, S. 623-660

Abstract

Abstract: In this General Report presented at the XVIth Congress of Comparative Law in Brisbane (July 2002), the author discusses two basic types of security. First, he addresses personal security, understood as an obligation assumed by a third party as security for the principal debtor's obligation. By contrast, real security is a property right granted, as a rule, by the principal debtor itself in its own assets; its peculiar feature is the fact that it conveys, with respect to the charged assets, a privileged position to the secured creditor. The author concludes his report with some "informed speculation" about the future development of the law of security.