We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
What we mean by ‘title’
Like many property law terms, the word ‘title’ is used in a number of different senses. It is often used loosely to refer to someone's right or interest in a thing, but it also has a number of technical meanings. For example, it can be used to refer not to a person's proprietary interest in a thing, but to their entitlement to that interest as against another person. As Professor Goode explains in Commercial Law at pp. 52–4:
A person's interest in an asset denotes the quantum of rights over it which he enjoys against other persons, though not necessarily against all other persons. His title measures the strength of the interest he enjoys in relation to others.
This is the sense in which the word ‘title’ will be used here. In this jurisdiction it is particularly important to be able to distinguish a person's entitlement to an interest from the interest itself because our system is primarily concerned with relativity of title rather than with absolute title. In other words, when a person claims to be entitled to a particular interest in a thing, it is usually sufficient for him to prove that his entitlement, or title, to the interest is better than that of the person disputing his claim: it is rarely necessary for him to prove absolute entitlement.
For reasons which will become apparent, it is possible for two or more people to have titles to the same interest in a thing.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
