engleski

The property of Croatian communal households: division per capita or per linea, or: did the Austrian General Civil Code alter the concept of family cooperatives?

The Austrian General Civil Code instituted a closed system of proprietary rights in which ownership could be individual or co-ownership. The non-recognition of joint ownership precluded the incorporation of the institution of Croatian communal households into the legal order based on the GCC. Under joint (communal) ownership, individual members’ share of the household property were not specified, which is why there was no application of inheritance rules (as a significant feature of communal households), but they were ascertainable in the division of communal property. The communal household, if viewed from the perspective of its internal organization, was an example of a complex household form in which several nuclear families could live vertically and horizontally. When a family cooperative is considered from the standpoint of the GCC, then family implied the original parents with their descendents, while a single nuclear family as its component would have corresponded to the concept of a lineage according to the GCC. In compliance with this conception of the appearance of a family cooperative, the communal property had to be divided between individual nuclear families, i.e., per linea. Uncertainly surrounding the division per capita (customary in the feudal period) or per linea was prompted by the fact that the acceptance of division per linea is rooted in kinship, i.e., the transfer of rights and obligations from ancestors to descendents, or intestate inheritance. Thus, although inside the commune there was no inheritance with regard to communal property, inheritance law found an equivalent in the active right of commune members to a property share.

Croatian Communal Household; property division; per capita; per linea; ABGB

nije evidentirano