Book Review: Law of Property Casebook for Students (Eighth Edition) By AJ van der Walt

Reviewed by Louis Rood.

If legislation is the recipe of law, then court cases are the ingredients. It is the judgments of our courts that both interpret and apply the law, evaluate the evidence, assess the facts, and establish the precedents upon which we all rely.

The 60 cases selected for this book include not only some of the classic decisions dealing with the law of property, but others that are particularly interesting, recent or topical, and demonstrate a number of important points or principles. Wisely, the author has avoided long and difficult judgments and rather opted for relatively brief and more pertinent decisions.

This is the eighth edition of this popular casebook, which forms a companion volume to another work in the Juta Property Law Library, namely Introduction to the Law of Property (2016 Juta) by the same author with Professor Gerrit Pienaar.

The book contains both a bilingual English and Afrikaans version for reasons of economy and will reach a wide readership of students and practitioners of property law. Useful and practical hints on the reading and analysis of both cases and legislation are included. There are explanatory notes and commentary on each of the cases, and where appropriate, the facts of each case are summarised.

The cases are conveniently grouped to deal with the various aspects of the law of property, such as ownership, possession, limited real rights in property such as servitudes, and constitutional property law. Extracts from selected legislation such as the Prescription Act, Deeds Registries Act, Security by Means of Movable Property Act and the Insolvency Act compliment the text.

The distinguished author Professor Andre van der Walt BIur Hons(BA) LLB LLM LLD of Stellenbosch University has with this work continued to contribute to and further consolidated the ever-growing and comprehensive range of the Juta Property Law Library series in this very important branch of private law. Students who will become the property lawyers and judicial officers of the future will welcome and benefit from this quality casebook.