The right of preemption

Property right (jus proprietatis) and contractual freedom establish the right for every owner to choose the person to whom he may wish to sell his property. There are nevertheless hypotheses where the legislator granted to some persons, by his own authority, a right of pre-emption which allows them to be preferred to others when concluding the sale contract. Right of preemption remains, however, a badly known and controversial institution, as the legislator established a very great quantity of rights of preemption, according to his political ambitions, and endowed each of these rights of a specific legal regime. The fact that he hardly worried to confer on them any coherence generates many conflicts between rights of preemption, or between a right of preemption and another legal institution. Besides, general interest, which justifies right of preemption and requires that its domain be limited to strict minimum as well as the guarantees granted to the concerned persons, does not dissuade the legislator to strengthen constantly the influence of this institution. These data, which illustrate the purposes of right of preemption, do inevitably influence its notion : indeed, they lead to consider that the service expected from the seller, which is to propose by priority the acquisition of his property to the beneficiary, is constituting the basis of right of preemption. The regime and the effectiveness of all the rights of preemption are based upon that service. It becomes then possible to suggest a new definition of right of preemption and to establish its legal nature from property right. Two criteria of delimitation of right of preemption can be also proposed, the first one resting on its legal source, the second resulting from the determination of the moment of its intervention, which is not without practical consequence.