ABSTRACT
This discussion has taken its central motif from Bauman: specifically the observation that social
bonds are breaking down and becoming more liquid. In relation to property law this has
manifested itself in the problematic application of principles, developed originally in relation to
land, to very different forms of property which do not conform to traditional patterns of tangibility
or identifiability. Rather, these new forms of property are generally created by commercial
activity-from copyright to electronic payment systems-and property law is challenged to cope
with them armed only with its traditional implements. What emerges further by extension of
Bauman’s ideas is a sense that these new forms are ‘light’ both in terms of their intangibility and
the restricted level of legal obligation which they impose on their owners. Mooted developments
in the legal attitude to offshore trusts and to various forms of investment trust would tend to
exacerbate this tendency. By contrast there remain other property relationships which are
burdensome, for example the domestic mortgage. This bears out Bauman’s thesis that there are
some property relationships which are ‘unbearably light’ and yet other property relationships
which are comparatively ‘heavy’.
