Summary

For the purpose of this article, latent ownership rights are understood as a situation when formally existing ownership rights are contrasted with the actual situation based on which the court establishes ownership rights which really exist, but have not been formally registered (true ownership rights).

In the Latvian law, a formally fixed principle of public credibility exists only with respect to immovable property. This is provided by Article 994 of the Civil Law. The quoted legal norm corresponds with Article 812 of the Baltic Private Act dated from 1864. Application guidelines for this norm were established in the pre-war court practice. Only one possibility of changing the corroboration is known from the pre-war practice: where it was possible to prove that the person against whom the action about the change of the record was raised, knew that the ownership rights entered in the registry did not comply with the actual situation (the true ownership rights), i.e., indicating the bad faith of the acquirer. In the present Latvian court practice, unregistered ownership rights are recognised in several new instances. These are the following: the court establishes collision between the internal defect of the alienation transaction of the immovable property and the Land Register record; the true possession is given preference over the formal ownership rights; joint property of spouses.

The author gives an overview of the relevant legal practice, explains the background to its development and makes some proposals to change the regulation.