Bona Fide Purchase and the Currency of Money

Abstract

If a thief steals money from you is it still yours? What if the thief passes it to a friend as a gift? Does it make any difference if the thief spends the money in a shop? The answer to these questions depends on the “currency” of money, a legal attribute not shared by other kinds of property. A person's title to property is generally derived from the previous owner. When the property is transferred, the title that once vested in him simply passes to the recipient with the result that the recipient cannot acquire a better title than the person from whom he got the property.' To take an example, when a thief steals a car he has bare possession of it and the victim remains the owner. A person buying the car from the thief can only get possession of it. This general rule governing the transfer of title to property is summed up in the maxim nemo dat quod non habet.

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