Acquisition of Ownership of Movable Things by A Contract Other Than Sale

Abstract

Unlike most codes of law in the Continental Europe, the Civil and Commercial Code of Thailand contains no general rules on the transfer of ownership from one person to another by means of a juristic act. Thailand provides the rules on the transfer of ownership only for certain types of juristic act such as Section 458 (Sale Contract), the rule which is indeed modelled from the principle contained in the French Civil Code, given that a contract once is formed will establish obligations between the parties and simultaneously transfer the ownership of the property which is the object of obligation without pursuing any further procedure. This is while the Roman law, on the other hand, further requires, delivery of the property in order to pass its possession to acquirer; whereas, the civil law of Germany requires the parties’ mutual agreement to pass on the ownership in addition to the delivery of the property. Both are legally conceived that a juristic act merely creates obligations between the parties that further requires one to latterly transfer the ownership of a property (or a thing) and the ownership will be passed to acquirer only when the delivery procedure is duly performed in accordance with the law of property. Nonetheless, in Book IV of the Thai Civil and Commercial Code, the law of property in Thailand only mention about the transfer of ownership by operation of law. It is therefore suggested by view of the paper that the Civil and Commercial Code of Thailand should introduce general provisions on the acquisition of ownership of movable things by a contract other than sale.