Protection of a good-faith acquirer

Protection of a Good-Faith Acquirer The object of this master thesis is an institute of protection of a good faith acquirer who is not under contract with an original owner and problems concerning it. There are plenty of cases in Lithuanian case law where property of the original owner is transferred by the person not entitled to transfer; an acquirer of the thing transfers the thing again and later the original owner demands to invalidate the transactions and return his property. Such being the case, a confrontation of two equivalent owners’ – original and subsequent – interests’ arises. The public interest exists for the resolution of this problem to be proper, because the stability of civil circulation and legal certainty depends on it. Seeking the balance between the parties of the conflict, the importance to ensure the consistent interpretation and application of the substantial principles of the protection of good faith acquirer is emphasized. In order to explore the nature of a good faith acquirer institute, its origin and evolution are analyzed in this master thesis. It is emphasized, that the restraints of vindication and the possibility to acquire good title from an unauthorized person, confirm transformation of the Roman maxim nemo dat quad non habet in modern civil law. A great attention is paid to the conclusion that the rules of protection of a good faith acquirer are indicated in property law, although they are relevant dealing with the consequences of an invalid contract, concerning a good faith acquirer as a third party as well. On the basis of comparative, systematic, logical and teleological methods the following rules of protection of a good faith acquirer, established by the laws or determined by jurisprudence and case law, are analyzed: a criterion of good faith; a valuable consideration of contract; criterions concerning the loss of possession of a movable without the owner’s consent and a loss of possession of an immovable due to crime committed by another. The contents of these rules, the existing and potential problems of application of rules are researched on the grounds of jurisprudence and case law analysis. A relation between a third person in good faith and a party of transaction acting in good faith is analyzed in the last part of this master thesis. This relation and problems related are examined by the systematic analysis of Lithuanian case law concerning the following two categories of cases: cases re property acquired in compliance with a procedure for the enforcement of court judgments and cases re property acquired in compliance with an administrative act. Referring to the findings of the research it is concluded that on the grounds of the rules developed by the jurisprudence and case law of Lithuania and other continental and common law system countries, it is possible to settle an owner – good faith acquirer conflict and determine the contents of the good faith acquirer protection rules in practice. Although, the factual nature of these rules determines, that the balance of interests in particular case would be ensured if court examines the factual circumstance of the case universally and bases the judgment on the principle of adequacy