Study On The Ownership Of Movable Property In Multiple Sales

The Supreme People's Court made two mistakes in determining the ownership of movable property in multiple sales.One is paying no attention to the difference between normal sale and multiple sales and saying that the ownership of the subject mater must belong to one buyer if the contract is in actual performance,which becomes the ideological root of violating the principle of equality on creditor's rights and is likely to lead to different treatment on buyers with right of obligatory claim.The other mistake is the inaccurate understanding of the legislative intention of “registration antagonism” stipulated in Article 24 of Property Law,which ignores the confrontation effect of registration,threatens transaction safety,and goes against the legislative intention's implementation of encouraging buyers to register in special movable property sales.From the legislative point of view,the ownership of movable property in multiple sales should be identified based on the following rules: firstly,determine the effectiveness of various contracts in multiple sales of movables.If the buyer knows the seller has already signed contract with prior buyer on the same subject matter,then the contract should be directly recognized as invalid according to “malicious collaboration” stipulated in Item 2 of Article 52 of Contract Law and there is no need to subdivide the buyer's subjective malicious even if the buyer is “only informed”.If the subject is not delivered,eliminate the buyer's right of obligatory claim on ownership of movables;if the subject matter is delivered,other buyers has the right to request the return of the subject matter.Secondly,in the case of that all contracts have no mistakes,if the subject matter is delivered or registered,the judge can directly identify the movable object belongs to the buyer.The reason is that the buyer has got the property which is prior to other buyers' right of obligatory claim,and the buyer who has registered can obtain priority protection based on the legislative policy for the protection of the registration.Thirdly,in special movables multiple transactions,if the seller delivers and registers the subject matter to different buyers,the buyers have equal ownership on the subject matter because registration has negative confrontation effect on delivery.At this time,the judge should determine the ownership based on the bid and compensation priority rules.Lastly,if all buyers have not accepted the delivery or registered the subject matter,the ownership should be determined according to the bid and compensation priority rules,so as not to undermine the principle of equality of creditor's rights and lead to injustice in multiple sales.