ABSTRACT
At a fairly early stage, the English law of sale rejected the idea that proprietary rights in goods sold automatically passed at the time of either contract or delivery:1 instead, it was settled that the matter should be left to the agreement between the parties.2 The SGA lays down rules as to the passing of proprietary rights where the parties do not evince any specific intent in this respect: these rules will be considered in Chapter 20 and are presumably also applicable to quasi-sales3 and to hp upon exercise of the option to purchase.4
