Ownership

Ownership in goods usually passes when the goods have been paid for, however there can be exceptions to this.

For example, if part of the agreement is that the seller must do something to the goods before they are delivered, then ownership only passes when that agreed action has been carried out and the buyer has been told that it has been done.

If the seller is authorised or required to send the goods to the buyer, delivery of the goods to the carrier is not delivery of the goods to the buyer.

Deciding if ownership has passed to the buyer can be very important in for example a situation where the seller goes bankrupt during the agreement.

Ownership can also be important in cases where the seller has no right to sell the goods. The seller with no title to the goods cannot pass ownership to the buyer.

There are exceptions to this:

If the seller sells a car which is under a HP agreement then as long as the buyer is a private individual and not a trader and did not know the car was under a HP agreement, ownership will pass to the buyer.

Another example is if the owner allowed the seller to give the impression that he was the true owner and the buyer was fooled by this, then ownership will pass to the buyer. Also if the seller was acting on behalf of the owner, then again ownership will pass to the buyer.

These are just some of the examples of when ownership may pass to the buyer even though the seller did not have proper title to the goods.

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