Dutch term – Naastingsrecht

Naastingsrecht was the right to have the first option of buying a property. Whenever a property was sold, a person who had naastingsrecht could match the purchase price and buy the property for himself, cancelling the original sale.

Different parts of the Netherlands had different variations of this right. In most regions, next of kin had naastingsrecht. For instance, a younger brother could prevent his older brother from selling the family farm to a stranger by buying it himself. The naastingsrecht usually had to be exercised within a year of the sale, which meant that the buyer would remain uncertain of the purchase for a year after he bought the property. In some regions fellow owners and neighbors also had naastingsrecht, but only after the next of kin chose not to buy the property.

In some areas, like Friesland, all sales were announced publicly to allow people to exercise their naastingsrecht. These announcements were recorded in proclamatieboeken (proclamation books), which can be found in the court records in the provincial archive Tresoar.

As you can imagine, there was great potential for conflict in determining who had the best claims to the right to purchase the property. Resulting legal actions can be found in the civil court records in the local or regional archives.

Variations of the naastingsrecht continued until the introduction of the Napoleonic Code in 1809.

Town crier. Anthonie van den Bos, 1778 – 1838. Credits: Rijksmuseum (public domain)