ABSTRACT
How can a contractual debt – the classical thing in action in the common law – be both property (being a species of personal property) and not property (being an in personam, as opposed to an in rem, right)? This paper confronts the riddle that is the contractual thing in action’s classification as personal property and how ‘transfers’ of such property, inter vivos, are effected, notwithstanding the doctrine of privity within the law of contract. The key, we suggest, lies in the conceptual duality of both ‘property’ and ‘transfer’. This paper comprises two parts. The first considers the vexed concept of property both within the common law and without. The second examines the manner in which English (and Singapore) law effects transfers to in personam rights such as contractual things in action. By keeping in mind that the class of ‘property’ is not homogenous, and take note that different kinds of ‘property’ require different mechanisms to effect their ‘transfer’, this chapter hopes to lift some of the fog bedevilling a clear view of this area of human endeavour.
Low, Kelvin FK and Tham, Chee Ho, Propertising Contract: Two Kinds of Property and Two Kinds of Transfer (March 1, 2025) in Ho Hock Lai and Kelvin FK Low (eds), A Gentleman of the Law: Essays in Honour of Tan Yock Lin (NUS Press, forthcoming).
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