Tangible Personal Property Flashcards
Glaister-Carlisle v Glasiter-Carlisle 1968 -transfer of legal title
An intention to transfer legal title must be clear and unequivocal. In this case the husbands actions had been in the heat of the moment anger.
Re Cole (1964)
Not enough to just show intention , you must also deliver it to the person (if it is impractical , you must do it by deed) There has been no actual delivery e.g the donor handing over the chattels to the donee. Where the husband showed a table to the wife and said ‘it’s all yours darling ‘ it wasn’t enough that he showed intention. ‘Words of gift’ are insufficient to transfer property. The Trustee’s claim succeeded.
Dewar v Dewar - Tangible personal properties
Goff J held that the intention of the parties was the key to characterising the expectations of the parties.
“ … where a person intends to make a gift and the donee receives the thing given, knows thay he has got it and takes it, the fact that he says, -well I will only accept it as a loan , and you can have it back when you want it - “ does not prevent it from being an effective gift . Of course , it does not turn it into a loan unless the donor says : “ Very well , let it be a loan .””
The donnee could not force the donor to take the money back .
Lock v Heath (1892)- Tangible personal property
The court held that picking up a chair and handing it over to the donee as a symbol of gifting all the donor’s chattels was sufficient delivery . The husband said “I give you all the goods mentioned in the inventory” and gave his wife the inventory.
Thomas v Times Book Co Ltd
This concerned a manuscript of a play or a famous poet and playwright, before he left London for New York , he lost the manuscript in some Park. The producer said not to worry and that he would find it - he said that if he found it he can keep it . Some years later he tried to sell it . Dylan Thomas’ wife objected to this , the court said that the intention to make the gift continued until it was found.
Dylan Thomas suggested various places to look for the manuscript saying “if you can find the original manuscript , you can have it”. This was held as effective delivery .
It was a constructed delivery as Dylan had uttered the ‘words of gift’, and had put the producer in a position to take delivery of the object of the gift.
