The essence of sale being the transfer of ownership, it is one of the duties of the seller to ensure that he has

the right to sell what he purports to sell. That is why the law reads into every sale, the implied condition that the seller has the right to sell. If the sellers title turns out to be defective, the buyer may reject the goods.

The rule about implied condition is not absolute, the seller can rebut it by showing that the circumstances were such as to show a different intention. That is to say that seller may prove that he did not sell as the owner but in some special capacity which was in the knowledge of the buyer. In such a case the rule of implied as to title of the sale will not apply.1

The implied warranty of quiet possession equally applies to cases where the seller is not the real owner and where the seller has no right to sell.

In cases where the seller does not have the right to sell a particular item, but he sells it to the buyer and the buyer further incurs some cost on the item that he purchased, that being necessary cost for the proper functioning of the item purchased, the seller will be held liable to the price of the item as well as the incurred cost.2

Thus if there is a charge or encumbrance on the goods, it is the obligation of the seller to disclose them to the buyer before the time of the contract. If he fails in his duty, he will be guilty of breach of implied warranty in case there is any charge or warranty. If the buyer discharges the charge or encumbrance on goods, the seller will be liable to pay compensation to the buyer.

Goods may be sold many times over in breach of section 14 before they are ultimately traced by the true owner and the reason why the true owner can recover the goods from the last buyer, with whom the goods were lying, is that the true owner possesses the right in rem and hence can recover the goods from him as he can from any other person as right in rem is a right against the whole world.

1 2

Champan v. Speller, (1877) 2 Bom 256. Mason v. Burminghan, 1949) 2 KB 545.

Where the purported buyer becomes the owner of the goods before the buyer elects to avoid the contract, he may not be permitted to do so because this title has been perfected by the subsequent development. When the buyer becomes the owner of the goods after instituting a suit in the court of law, he is permitted to carry on with the proceedings of the suit because the title was perfected after he filed a suit.