Subjects:

Banking and Finance, Property Law

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

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.

• Detailed and systematic study of how property rights in money are transferred and enforced;
• Draws upon transactional economics, and relevant principles from both common law and civil law jurisdictions, to provide a coherent theory explaining how property rights in money operate;
• Considers the impact of technology on the methods used to transfer money, as well as looking at traditional methods;
• Applies economic and theoretical material to practical situations;
• Examines how property rights in money are enforced, for example when a payment is defective