ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with the situation where the buyer contracts to buy goods on pre-payrnent terms and the seller becomes insolvent without delivering the goods after payment is made. Typically an unsecured creditor of an insolvent debtor will receive at best a dividend representing a small percentage of his debt in the event of the creditor's liquidation. In such circumstances the buyer will generally seek to establish a proprietary claim to some asset in the hands of the seller. A pre-paying buyer of real property is entitled to an equitable lien over the property. The proprietary claim is asserted against anyone who detains or deals with the goods without the authority of the claimant by way of a claim for wrongful interference with goods. The Sale of Goods Act draws two distinctions which are important in the present context, between existing and future goods and between specific and unascertained goods.
