REFLEXIONES SOBRE EL DERECHO DE SUPERFICIE URBANA.

Abstract

Act 8/2007 of 28 May on land regulates surface rights in articles 35 and 36, which address the contents, creation, systems, conveyance, encumbrance and termination of surface rights. Before analysing the current situation, it is a good idea to take a look back at the evolution of surface right legislation. The Civil Code hardly concerns itself with surface rights, while the Land Act of 1956 and the Mortgage Regulation after the 1959 reform did discuss them. After that, the Revised Acts on the Legal System Pertaining to Land and Urban Zoning of 1976 and 1992 included surface rights. The Constitutional Court's ruling 61/1997 of March 1997 declared several articles of the Revised Act of 1992 concerning surface rights unconstitutional, and Act 6/1998 of 13 April on the Legal System for Land and Assessments ordered that the remaining articles of the Revised 1992 Act remained in force. Some autonomous communities' civil legislation regulates surface rights as well. The New Code of Laws of Navarra does so in Laws 430 to 442. Article 564 of Book Five of the Civil Code of Catalonia does the same. All regional land laws include surface rights somewhere in their texts. The central portion of this paper is aimed at analysing the changes the Land Act of 2007 introduced in legislation, taking into account the influence of doctrine and jurisprudence.