Specification (legal concept)

The processing (Latin specificatio ), also processing, clears a legal concept in property law the change of ownership, which is necessary due to technical processing.

In contrast to the accessories can be seen in the German-speaking jurisdictions of processed materials or things have no independent property more, only at the thing, which was prepared by the processing. Whether the processor becomes the owner or the owner of the raw material retains his property depends on whether the work of the transformation of the matter is more valuable than the thing itself So you can no longer have property rights on clay, which was made into bricks. The owner of his property barley also loses it when it is processed into malt.

Historical Development

The solution of the question of whether the processor or the owner of the raw material should belong to the newly manufactured, was measured at the value of work since the end of the 18th century.

In classical Roman law, the question has been solved less on the basis of legal reasoning, or, as in the present-day German-speaking jurisdictions, commercial perspective, but whether the nature of a thing from the outer shape (Lat. forma) or commodity (Latin materia ) depends. The law school of Prokulianer spoke out following the philosophy of Aristotle to the outer shape of, so the property was to the processor. The other major school of law followed the philosophical doctrine of the Stoics, according to which the raw material is the essence of a thing, with the result that the property remained in the processed goods to the owner of the raw material.

Under Justinian the dispute was resolved as meaning that not recyclable in the commodity terms of the property fell to the processor. Examples of this were grapes that were made ​​into wine. If the situation can, however, be recycled into the raw material, eg a bronze statue by melting, the ownership of the newly manufactured thing remained the material owners.