ABSTRACT

The term ‘alienation’ is derived from a Latin word, alius, which means ‘another person’. So, in relation to property, the term ‘alienation’ refers to the process whereby rights in property are transferred to another person. The word ‘alienation’ may sometimes be used in a wide sense to refer to the transfer of any rights in property to another person, or in a narrower sense to refer to the transfer of rights of ownership of property only. This latter is the way the word is used in the Oxford Dictionary of Current English,1 when it describes the verb ‘alienate’ as meaning to ‘transfer ownership of’. It is in this narrower sense, of a grant or transfer of ownership of property, that the word ‘alienation’ will be used in this chapter.