Suchergebnisse

If someone lends money to another person, he trusts that he will get his money back. Particularly in the context of commercial relationships, there is a need for more security. Such security can be achieved by a so-called security right on someone's property. If the debtor does not pay back the borrowed money, the secured creditor can use his security right to sell the property. From the proceeds, he may recover his claim. The most common example of such a security right is the mortgage on a house. Another security right is the right of pledge. Movable goods and claims can be pledged. In former days, a good could only be pledged if the good was actually handed over to the creditor. If the debtor did pay his loan, he got his property back. One could think of the pawnshop. Since 1992, the Dutch Civil Code offers the possibility to pledge a good, while the debtor stays in possession. This means that the debtor can then continue to use the good, for example if the pledged good is a machine that is necessary for the business operations of the debtor. This PhD thesis analyzes the consequences such invisible security right leads to. Imagine the situation that a third person buys the pledged good from the debtor. Or that a third party gives a loan to the debtor because he thinks that there are enough means of recovery against the debtor's property. Should there be stricter requirements for invisible security rights? Is the insolvency administrator obliged to give the pledged machine, which is necessary for the business operations, back to the creditor? These and other questions are answered in the PhD thesis. Additionally, solutions are developed to address the arising problems.

During the Second World War, crime rates skyrocketed in the occupied Netherlands, particularly concerning theft and other offences against property. These crimes were committed by both those who had been convicted in the prewar period and previously 'well-behaved' citizens. Some of them felt forced to steal by the circumstances, others took advantage of the situation for their own benefit.
How did suspects justify their acts? Did they consider theft during the occupation to be a crime, or not? And how did Dutch judges pass judgement concerning property crimes? Did they have compassion for stealing compatriots, or did they consider theft in times of scarcity and increasing poverty to be a great danger, which should be severely punished? In this book, historian Jan Julia Zurné uses case files and verdicts by Dutch courts to provide insight into the lives, experiences and motivations of wartime thieves.

Brussels' urban space, like that of many other cities, is dotted with evidence of a productive industrial past. The activities that took place there were generally not geared to mass production for export, but to small-scale manufacturing aimed at supplying the needs of local city dwellers. That small-scale manufacturing industry included members of the building trade such as contractors, joiners and builders' merchants who catered to the demand for housing in an ever-expanding city. Their business premises formed a vital link in the creation and renovation of the urban fabric. This article focuses on the values of small-scale industrial heritage from the building trade, which is under enormous pressure in a city like Brussels. The dynamics of constantly rising real estate prices make residential redevelopment a lucrative investment. Thanks to gentrification, many workshops are being converted into housing and former warehouses are falling prey to large-scale property development. Real estate dynamics, scaling-up and changing market conditions are also contributing to the disappearance of the small-scale, live-work fabric that fosters a beneficial mix of functions. The expertise and skills that for centuries have supplied the basic needs of the city in a sustainable manner are then lost. In light of growing traffic congestion and unemployment, academics and urban planners are becoming increasingly convinced of the need for permanently embedded, city-servicing economic actors like building businesses. Thus, even today, small-scale industrial heritage is vital to the functioning of the urban economy, in that offers the possibility of spatially organizing or reorganizing city-servicing activities within a dense urban fabric. Inspired by integrated concepts of heritage, we therefore argue in favour of a broadening of industrial heritage values aimed at anchoring the use of such locations in time and space. We take issue with an exclusively material approach to industrial heritage by pointing out the immaterial heritage value of a continuity of productive use. After a brief theoretical reflection on the value of small-scale industrial heritage in the city, we examine the historical evolution of Brussels' industrial heritage at the macro level between 1890 and 1970, the period in which the development of the suburbs of Brussels was in full swing. We use a series of exemplary cases to illustrate the different trajectories of continuity and discontinuity of heritage on the one hand, and productive use of building trade locations in Brussels on the other. We also try to get to grips with the motivations of businesses that abandon the city, cease to exist or manage to adapt to volatile market conditions. This article uses a selection of cases to challenge a purely material approach to industrial heritage and makes the case for further research into the question of how individual heritage legislation might also recognize immaterial heritage values in historical business activity on a particular site or in an industrial building.