The Transaction for the Alienation of Another’s Property as an Element of the Legal Composition Giving Rise to Ownership Rights in a Good-Faith Purchaser

Russian civil law has not resolved the issue of how the lack of authority of a transferor affects the legal validity of a transaction and the role of such a transaction in forming the legal composition necessary for a goodfaith acquirer to obtain title to property. Civil law doctrine and judicial practice reflect two prevailing approaches. Under the first approach, a transaction involving another’s property is void pursuant to Article 168 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation as contradicting Article 209 of the Civil Code and as infringing the owner’s rights. Under the second approach, such a transaction is valid and gives rise to an obligation. There are no grounds for declaring a transaction involving another’s property invalid, since the transferor’s lack of authority is not classified by positive law as a defect entailing invalidity. Moreover, the expansion of the statutory grounds for invalidity beyond those expressly established by law is precluded by the direct provision of Article 166 of the Civil Code. A transaction concerning property constitutes one of the legal facts within the legal composition required for the acquisition of ownership and does not in itself produce a proprietary (real) effect. Since a contract for the transfer of property gives rise to an obligation, there are no grounds for concluding that such a transaction contradicts Article 209 of the Civil Code, infringes the owner’s rights, or should therefore be deemed invalid under paragraph 2 of Article 168. A valid transaction under which a good-faith acquirer receives the property constitutes, alongside the circumstances specified in Article 302 of the Civil Code, one of the necessary legal facts for the emergence of the acquirer’s ownership. The invalidity of such a transaction entails the absence of one of the requisite legal facts and, consequently, precludes the acquisition of ownership by a good-faith acquirer under Article 302 of the Civil Code.

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