Rules relating to passing of the property

A grain merchant at Vashi APMC agrees to sell you 50 bags of wheat from a godown holding 500 identical bags. You pay an advance and say you will collect next week. Over the weekend the godown floods. Are the 50 bags already yours, so that the loss is yours? Or were they never separated from the 500, so that nothing had passed and the loss is his? The law answers with a sequence of sections, and the skill is in choosing the right one for the facts.

In two minutes

Property in unascertained goods cannot pass until they are ascertained (s.18); in specific or ascertained goods it passes when the parties intend (s.19), and ss.20 to 24 give rules to find that intention, while s.25 lets the seller hold it back by reserving the right of disposal.

The rest of this chapter

The full explanation, the cheat sheet, every previous-year question at every mark weight, the quiz and the answer skeletons are part of Contract – II on LexBlox Semester. Sign in to unlock the subject, or read Module 1 of Legal Language and Writing free.