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Is it such an impoverished legal system that it has no provision for abandonment?

bluGill 2y ago
The world doesn't generally have that concept. The titanic sank in international waters yet when its vault was opened the insurance company immediately sued for everything recovered. I don't know Canadian law at all, but I would guess things can be abandoned, but it is tricky and not automatic. When a car is abandoned in it is generally a several month process of trying to find the owners before they declare it abandoned (my cousin had a car stolen in Minnesota - it was found abandoned in Mexico and they gave him instructions on how to get it - in his case the cost to recover was more than it was worth but the point is they went through a lot of effort to find him). Particularly in cases like this if any family member wants to they can argue they just couldn't figure out how to get it out of the water but they wanted it all along.
nucleardog 2y ago
Sort of? There’s abandonment in the sense of “I don’t want this thing anymore. It’s no longer mine.” and in the sense of “This thing is abandoned, it’s mine now.” We have the latter but not the former. Ownership of something allows you exclusive rights to exploit it for gain… but also puts on you exclusive responsibility for it. Nobody minds if you don’t want the benefits anymore, but we want someone responsible for managing that thing’s impact on society and others. So you can’t just decide to abandon things (*offer not valid in Quebec). You are the owner until someone else chooses to take on the responsibilities of ownership. But in a case where there are multiple competing claims of ownership, abandonment is a consideration. If someone else wants ownership of something you’ve practically abandoned, they can take it and the court may agree that they have become the owner. (Though usual disclaimer about lawyers being expensive.) But the thing _always_ has and had an owner—someone responsible for it. Nothing is ever unowned (*offer valid in Quebec).

The world doesn't generally have that concept. The titanic sank in international waters yet when its vault was opened the insurance company immediately sued for everything recovered. I don't know Canadian law at all, but I would guess things can be abandoned, but it is tricky and not automatic. When a car is abandoned in it is generally a several month process of trying to find the owners before they declare it abandoned (my cousin had a car stolen in Minnesota - it was found abandoned in Mexico and they gave him instructions on how to get it - in his case the cost to recover was more than it was worth but the point is they went through a lot of effort to find him). Particularly in cases like this if any family member wants to they can argue they just couldn't figure out how to get it out of the water but they wanted it all along.

nucleardog 2y ago

Sort of? There’s abandonment in the sense of “I don’t want this thing anymore. It’s no longer mine.” and in the sense of “This thing is abandoned, it’s mine now.” We have the latter but not the former. Ownership of something allows you exclusive rights to exploit it for gain… but also puts on you exclusive responsibility for it. Nobody minds if you don’t want the benefits anymore, but we want someone responsible for managing that thing’s impact on society and others. So you can’t just decide to abandon things (*offer not valid in Quebec). You are the owner until someone else chooses to take on the responsibilities of ownership. But in a case where there are multiple competing claims of ownership, abandonment is a consideration. If someone else wants ownership of something you’ve practically abandoned, they can take it and the court may agree that they have become the owner. (Though usual disclaimer about lawyers being expensive.) But the thing _always_ has and had an owner—someone responsible for it. Nothing is ever unowned (*offer valid in Quebec).