Property Rights in Money

Property Rights in Money is a systematic study of how proprietary interests in (ownership of and transactions in) money are transferred and enforced as part of a payment transaction.

The book begins by considering the different kinds of property recognised by the law which perform the economic functions of money. It describes how the nature of an owner's proprietary interest differs depending on the kind of property that is treated as money.

The main body of the work provides a detailed account of how property rights in money are transferred from one person to another, and the proprietary consequences when a transfer of money is ineffective. For example, the work considers the consequences for the passing of property in money when a person pays the money by mistake, through the fraud of another or through a breach of his or her duties as a trustee or a company director.

The author provides a coherent explanation of the proprietary effect of money transfers whether made via a transfer of coins or banknotes or, as is now more common, through a bank payment system.

The final section of the book considers how a person can enforce his property rights in money, and the legal remedies open to him to recover his money once it is in the hands of a person who is not entitled to it.

Contents:
1. Money As Property
Legal and economic conceptions of money
Money in the law of personal property
Primary concepts in explaining property in money
Incorporeal assets in the law of property
The corporeal view of money as a cause of confusion
De-physicalization of money
Scope of the book
2. Explaining the Property Rights Regime Applied to Money
The relevance of law to supporting the economic functions of money
Economics and the allocation of property rights in money
Preventing divergence between the functions of money as a unit of account and as a medium of exchange
The reality of the economic model
3. Derivative Transfers of Title: General Principles
Main features of derivative transfers of title
Practical limitations on the explanation of derivative transfers of title to money
The payer's title before the transfer
Transfer of legal title by delivery
Transfer of legal title other than by delivery
The validity of the underlying transaction and the effectiveness of the intention to transfer ownership
4. Void Derivative Transfers of Title to Corporeal Money
Abstraction and void underlying transactions
Incapacity to transfer
Void transfers owing to absence of negativing of intention: general Absence of intention
Mistake negativing of intention
Mistake negativing intention in equity
5. Derivative Transfers of Title to Incorporeal Money
Money transfers through a payment mechanism
Property and transfers through a payment mechanism
Difference one: the originator's title is not transferred
Difference two: the beneficiary takes the legal title to the money transferred despite defects in originator's intention to make the payment
Difference three: explaining the priority of interests after a transfer of bank money
Vitiated transfers of incorporeal money: general principles
Unauthorised substitution and proprietary interests in the proceeds of a vitiated transfer
The effect of vitiating reasons at law and in equity on the transfer of incorporeal money
6. Voidable Derivative Transfers of Title to Money
Voidable transfers and rescission: general
The proprietary character of the payer's right to rescind
7. Mixtures of Money
Proprietary effect of mixtures of corporeal money
Proprietary effect of mixtures of incorporeal money
8. The Currency of Money
Currency and the extinction of adverse titles
Currency and bona fide purchase
The elements of bona fide purchase for value
9. Enforcement of Title to Money
Enforcement of title through the law of wrongs and restitution
Enforcement of legal title to money
Enforcement of equitable title to money

Readership:
Banking and commercial law practitioners and academics interested in personal property, restitution and equity.