When Law Stands Still: Land Contracts in English Law and Law's “Abandonment” of Everyday Life

Abstract

After the 1989 reform on land contracts - the Law of Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1989 - a contract for the sale or other disposition of an interest in land could only be made in writing. Behind what appears to be merely a “technical” rule of private law lies, hidden, something that is rather more serious than that - the figure itself of nothing less than the relationship between law and everyday life in Europe's systems of private law. Text and context, alone, are necessary but insufficient analytical steps to uncover such a figure. Instead, it is here suggested, one must rethink the relationship between law and everyday life in terms of “abandonment”.Building on (without necessarily fully endorsing) philosophical insights from Heidegger, Nancy and Agamben, the paper provides a first inroad into one of the most troubling aspects of the modern nation state - law's abandonment of everyday life.