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[iker]

Hi can someone please put me out of my misery and help me with this scenario :-

Person B owns a tourist bus and recently is fitted with new wheels from person C with the agreement that they can use the wheels for the bus but the wheels remain the property of C until B pays for them.

Person B sells the bus to person A before the wheels are paid for.

Person C sends person A a request for the return of the wheels or the payment for them.

Q. What area of law is this ? I thought accesion ?
Q. What rights does person A have in relation to the wheels?

Any advice much appreciated :)

[hillocke]

In Bergougnan v British Motors Ltd, the NSW Supreme Court dealt with a case of a hire purchase arrangement with respect to tyres that had been attached to a truck. It was held that because the tyres could be removed without damaging either the tyres or the truck, the doctrine of accession did not apply. That is, the owner of the truck did not gain title to the tyres by attaching them, and so any purchaser of the truck would not own the tyres.
This certainly seems to be an analogous case. I'm no mechanic, but I assume it's possible to remove the wheels without damaging the wheels or the bus. So C remains the owner of the wheels, B therefore cannot sell them, and so A has no rights in relation to the wheels. Nemo dat quod non habet. C can sue B for breach of contract (depending on the terms of their contract) or for conversion.
If A refuses to return or pay for the wheels, C can sue A for conversion or detinue. The only real difference is that you can, subject to the Court's discretion, get an order for specific restitution for detinue. For conversion, on the other hand, the only remedy is damages. In this case, I imagine C would probably prefer the money over the wheels anyway, so it doesn't really matter.

[osmont]

Person A does not owe person C anything.

There is no contract between them

The only contract which existed in regards to the wheels, was between person B and person C.
When the car was sold, it was for the car, NOT any existing loan contracts.

Person B owes person C for the wheels.
As person A bought the car as a whole, as is.

Person A can not be held to account to someone they have never met, exchanged words or paperwork with. Therefore Person C does not exist to them legally financially.

[andor25]

It's 6.30 in the morning in Australia, I'm not sure how many lawyers will have left their coffins yet. You'd be better asking this questions in a few hours.

[aenedleah10]

Not Australian, so don't take my word for rote, but we're both in commonwealth common law jurisdictions, so it should be fairly similar...

The wheels are chattels. The tourist bus is a chattel.

The wheels don't get subsumed into the tourist bus because the bus is a chattel, not a real property interest.

Thus, person C can sue person A for conversion, and they can sue person B for breach of contract. Person A has no property rights in relation to the wheels - person B couldn't sell person A something that he did not own (unless there is a statute in Australia that provides an exception to the common law rule).

It is in person A's best interest to settle with person B for the value of the wheels (and set up the agreement so that person A agrees to a transfer of their property interest in the wheels to A for the difference), and then to sue person B for breach of contract.