Page 263 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn

CHAPTER FIVE
'Regarding servitudes it seems to be just that, if the seller has not mentioned them, the buyer is not bound by the contract. This is less so, if the thing was said to be sold with all servitudes and burdens of old resting on it, as is usually written in deeds of sale. Imperial \[sc. Roman, NdB\] laws do not provide a remedy here... '.232
Huber thus likewise presents two views in Roman-Frisian law. The one view only grants a price reduction against a knowing seller. The other grants the buyer a right to rescission, when the seller has not told him about encumbrances, irrespective of his knowledge, so it seems. Huber himself does not make a clear choice between the two.233 The fact that Huber describes two different liability regimes might be explained by the character of the two works in which Huber discusses them. In his Praelectiones Huber deals with Justinianic Roman law, whereas in his Heedendaegse Rechtsgeleertheyt he describes the law in force.234
Wissenbach, on the other hand, explicitly opts for Doneau's interpretation. Only the knowing seller had to answer for servitudes with a price reduction.235
Concludingly, Roman-Dutch and Roman-Frisian law had no clear-cut answer to the question which liability regime applied when someone had sold a plot of land encumbered with servitudes or taxes. Perhaps legal practice can tell us more about how the problem was dealt with in the Dutch Republic? After all, judges an lawyers could not escape from taking the plunge once opposing parties demanded a clear answer in a lawsuit.
232 Huber, Rechts-geleertheyt, vol. 1, 3.5.65, p. 470: 'Van servituten of erf-dienstbaarheden schijnt evenwel rechtens te zijn, dat ten dien aanzien een kooper niet gehouden is, soo wanneer geen meldinge daer van is gemaekt, veel minder als er gezegd is, dat het goedt verkocht wordt, met servituten ende lasten daer toe van ouds behoorende, gelijk doorgaens in de koop-brieven wordt gestelt. Keysers wetten geven hier van geen actie...'.
233 Lokin e.a, Het Rooms-Friese recht, pp. 154-158.
234 Both Huber's Praelectiones and his Heedendaegse Regtsgeleertheyt bear a Roman-Frisian rather than
Roman-Dutch stamp. In both works references to disputes on Frisian soil in which Frisian statutory law was applied frequently occur. Though Huber's Rechtsgeleertheyt has a somewhat confusing subtitle (soo elders, als in Frieslandt gebruikelijk), his son Zacharias makes clear that Roman law as it is applied in Friesland should be the foundation of every other part of the Christian world where Roman law is in use. Huber, Rechtsgeleertheyt, fo. 3: 'Ten dien einde is van nooden geweest, in dit boek te verklaeren, de gronden van de oude Roomsche Rechts-geleertheyt, welke nergens zo ongekreukt en onverandert gevonden wordt, als in Frieslandt'; for the same sentiment cf. Huber, Praelectiones, ad proem. inst., no. 6 p. 2: 'De praxi universae loquimur, non de moribus singularium locorum, de quibus agendi finis non esset. Frisiae tamen instituta discrepantia a iure romano quandoque commemorabimus, cum quia pauca sunt, tum quod eadem quae heic a iure Caesaris abeunt, ubique per Europam, quae romanas leges agnoscit, haud dispari modo se habent'. In other words, all Roman law as discussed in the Praelectiones is applied in Friesland, unless stated otherwise.
235 Wissenbach, Exercitationes, to D. 21.2, no. 16, p. : 'Venditor, inquam, etiam ignorans ob vitium morbumven tenetur, ob servitutem vero, vel tributum, ita demum obligatur, si sciens servitutem vel tributum, retinuerit, l. 1, §1 \[D. 19.1.1.1.\], l. Si sterilis, 21, §1 \[D. 19.1.21.1, l. Quaero, 39 \[D. 19.1.39\], l. 41 \[D. 19.1.41\], de act. empt.;'Habet tamen emptor actionem aestimatoriam, quanto minoris fundum emisset, si scivisset servitutem impositam, l. quoties, 61, D. de aedil. ed. \[D. 21.1.61\], l. 15, §15, 2, d.t. de evict. \[D. 21.2.15.2\]. Ratio discriminis est quia ob morbum vitiumve rem habere non licet, servitus vero vel tributum non est impedimento, quominus sub isto onere habere possidere, frui, liceat, d.l. Julianus, 13, § item qui furem, l. 1, §proinde, h.t., Don. 13, Comm 3, sect. non eadem causa \[Donellus, Commentarii, vol. 7, book 13, ch. 3, §13, p. 397\]'.
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