Luke Rostill

On the undergraduate Law course, I teach Land Law and the Law of Trusts (which are compulsory subjects) as well as Personal Property (an optional subject for final year students). I give tutorials in these subjects at Trinity and lecture on them in the Law Faculty. I also teach the postgraduate BCL/MJur course, Advanced Property and Trusts. I supervise doctoral dissertations on a wide range of topics in private law, including the nature of property rights, the functions and justifications of trusts, and the nature of digital assets.

My work is concerned with legal rights in respect of things (particularly land and goods): the nature and grounds of these rights, how they are acquired and transferred, and how they are protected.

A major focus of my recent work has been the relationship, in the law, between possession (roughly, physical control) and ownership. The questions that I have tried to answer include: how and why does the law protect possessors? Does a possessor acquire a property right in respect of the thing? And, if so, what is the relationship between the possessor and other individuals who have rights in respect of the thing, including the ‘true owner’? My book on this topic (Possession, Relative Title, and Ownership in English Law) was published by Oxford University Press in 2021. I am currently undertaking some work that builds upon the book, analysing the structure of personal property law and the nature of adverse possession in modern land law.

There are several other projects that I am currently working on. The first engages with contemporary property theory in relation to the nature and basis of ownership. This project has several strands, one of which is an attempt to elucidate the implications (for, among other things, property law) of ‘property conventionalism’: the thesis that  property arises from and is determined by social conventions.

The second concerns conflicts between property rights and the rights, needs, and interests of others. It focuses on the circumstances in which it is legally justifiable to use another’s land or goods without their consent, and examines whether the law is satisfactory.

The third concerns the law of co-ownership—the law concerning the ways in which a property right may be held by two or more persons, and the legal effects thereof.

‘The Pluralities of Property’ (2024) Oxford Journal of Legal Studies (forthcoming)

Possession, Relative Title, and Ownership in English Law (OUP 2021)

(with Charles Mitchell KC (Hon)) ‘Making Sense of Mesne Profits: Remedies’ (2021) 80 Cambridge Law Journal 552

‘Possession and Damages for Tortious Interferences with Chattels’ (2020) 41 Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 459

‘Terminology and Title to Chattels: A Case Against “Possessory Title”’ (2018) 134 Law Quarterly Review 407