What are accession and specificatio in property law?

Accession and specificatio are legal concepts concerning how property ownership is acquired through the addition of materials, labor, or the creation of new objects. Accession involves attaching an accessory object to a principal object, whereas specificatio creates an entirely new species from existing materials. Depending on jurisdiction and good or bad faith, remedies range from the transfer of title to financial damages.

What we know

• Accession is a mode of acquiring property involving the addition of value through labor or new materials, or the physical uniting of goods. [2]
• Unlike accession, specificatio produces a brand new object, known as a nova species. [4]
• In English common law, added value typically belongs to the original property owner, and a bad-faith trespasser generally cannot recover labor or materials. [2]
• Accession can apply to land, such as when natural deposits or planted trees add to a riverbank or real property. [2, 4]

Where to go next

• compared withHow does Scots property law handle original acquisition?
• the bigger pictureWhat are the rules of property law for real and personal property?
• a case in pointHow do courts resolve disputes over goods physically united in commercial law?
• how it workedWhat remedies like replevin and conversion apply when property changes by accession?
• how we knowHow does Roman law influence modern civil and common law property systems?
• an unexpected connectionHow does a legal term for adding property share a name with joining a treaty?The term accession applies both to property law concepts where goods merge and to international law when a party joins a treaty without participating in negotiations.

Sources

• [1]accession (Wikidata Q567586) · CC0 1.0
• [2]Accession (property law) · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [3]Accession · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [4]Accession (Scots law) · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [5]Property law · CC BY-SA 4.0