Study On The Legal Status Of Finder

The phenomenon of lost property is inevitable in real life, but the key point is how to construct a scientific and reasonable system of lost property regulating rights and obligations of both the finder and the loser of the lost property, dealing with legal relations concerning the lost property and promoting and maintaining the stability and development of society and economy. The central content of systems of picking up of lost property is the finder's legal status. Because the finder's legal status decides rights and obligations of administrativeagency of lost property and the third person in good faith of lost property.The current legal system of lost property in China is mainly found in Real Right Law of the People's Republic of China passed at the 5^th session of the 10^th National People's Congress held on March 16^th, 2007. The said law has great guiding significance on real life and supplements the vacuum in former legal system of lost property. It is great progress made in the civil legislation in China with much more practical significance and feasibility. However, the practical implementation of Real Right Law will be faced with many problems, because the regulations concerning the lost property system in Real Right Law have much deficiency compared with those in modern western countries.This paper, comprehensively adopting the research methods of comparative analysis, historical analysis, value analysis, positive analysis, examines the deficiency of the current regulations of lost property in China and the necessity of the perfection of said regulations as well as puts forward the assumption of reconstructing the legal system of lost property and rebalancing the rights and obligations of such parties as lost property finder, the loser of the property, and the third party of lost property. This paper has there parts:The concepts of picking up the lost property, finder and picking up are analyzed in the first part. The present author puts forward her query and meditation in respect of the definitions of the concept and constitutive requirements in academic circles and argues that lost property is movables occupied by no one and the lawful holder of which is definite and loses the possession of the lost property. The factors and nature of picking up are studied. Later, the identity of the finder in the following three controversial occasions is defined: the picking up by a public legal person; picking up in a hotel or taxi and so on; picking up of the property which is lost again by the first finder. The two factors of picking up are different in terms of time and sequence of priority and the picking up shall be done according to the law, otherwise, the act cannot be deemed as picking up of lost property.A comparison and analysis is made between systems of picking up of lost property in the second part. Some defects in the current legal system of lost property in China are pointed out: the rights and obligations of parties stipulated are unbalanced and the finder has no reward claim right; that lost property not claimed by anyone belongs to the government is unfair; no regulations are formulated concerning the applicable occasions of prescriptive acquisition and acquisition in good faith of lost property and so on.A necessary choice of the legal system of lost property in China is put forward in the third part. In respect of the defects in current legal system of lost property, the rights, obligations and liabilities of the finder are redefined. The legal status of the finder of lost property will be clearly stated in the following parts: the rights of the finder include reward claim right, the right of acquiring the ownership of lost property with conditions attached, claim for refunding of expenses, lien, right of prescriptive acquisition, claim for compensation by reason of damages caused by lost property. The obligations of the finder include notice and disclosure, reporting, submitting to safekeeping agency, keeping and return. The liabilities of the finder are mainly divided into two parts: loss of rights and liabilities other than loss of rights, such as compensation of loss and return the unjust enrichment and so on.