ULPIAN’S RETROSPECTIVE AND SOME CONCLUSIONS

Celsus’ opinion in D.19.1.38.2 prefigures Ulpian’s treatment of pipes as ‘part of the property’ in the sale of real estate. According to Ulpian, pipes were to be transferred with land even if there was no servitude because, he explains, they are comparable to part of the property, quasi pars aedium ad emptorem perveniunt (D.18.1.47 (Ulpian.

29 ad Sab.)). Though he equivocates here, in other cases he emphasises their permanent functionality, and maintains that pipes are part of the property even if they run far from the building or are laid underground.^[655] Furthermore, Ulpian’s category ‘part of the building’ understands accessories as part of the permanent fabric of a building even if not permanently attached, for example window panes or roof tiles (D.19.1.17.10 (Ulpian. 32 ad Ed.); D.33.1.12.25 (Ulpian. 20 ad Sab.)). Like roof tiles, pipes might be removed for repair or replacement, but they served a permanent function in providing water or drainage to the property and thus they should be included in ‘part of the property’. Ulpian’s opinions on pipes represent a move to treat at least plumbing accessories systematically as ‘part of the property’, yielding a flexible category that accounted for various methods of construction as well as the behaviour of buyers and sellers.

Looking back to the situation in D.19.1.38.2, Ulpian’s approach accommodates the practices in the real estate market described by Celsus.^[656] His flexible definition of ‘part of the property’ expands protection for buyers who did not inspect the property carefully or were not able to use contracts to pursue their interests, as Proculus expected. The two solutions to the problem in D.19.1.38.2 represent two perspectives on the relationship between law and society. Proculus takes an idealising view because his solution protects buyers’ and sellers’ interests only when they are well informed, honest, and proactive in using the legal system.

Celsus, like Ulpian, recognises that the real estate market rarely lives up to this ideal, and he explicitly aims to adapt law to these realities.^[657] Accessories like pipes were important to Roman landowners. Some Romans even bought property because of its valuable accessories, as Labeo recognised (D 18.1.34pr) (Paul. 33 ad Ed.)). Though Labeo’s opinion concerns a slave, probably the most valuable accessory, the cases discussed in this chapter show that even humble items like gravel and pipes could be worth a trip to court.^[658] The law did not always provide clear guidance about accessories, and buyers and sellers might be ill informed and inexperienced. Such difficulties could be interpreted as evidence that the jurists were out of touch with the real estate market, and that Celsus’ rationale is exceptional. The cases on accessories, however, show that the Romans tried to make the legal system work for them and that jurists addressed actual problems as they adapted legal traditions to the real estate market.

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Source: Plessis P.J. du. (ed.). New Frontiers: Law and Society in the Roman World. Edinburgh University Press,2013. — 256 p.. 2013

ULPIAN’S RETROSPECTIVE AND SOME CONCLUSIONS

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