Challenging Issues of Knowledge of a Good Faith Acquirer on the Absence of Authorities of the Transferor

Abstract

Article 302 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation protects the acquirer, who did not know and could not know about the alienator’s illegality when acquiring the thing. Knowledge of the rights of the alienator to the thing is one of the conditions for the protection of the acquirer. At the same time, the question of the volume and content of the acquirer’s knowledge for qualifying it as conscientious is debatable. The article proposes to proceed from the fact that in order to recognize the acquirer as good faith, it is sufficient to have no doubts about the legal basis for acquiring the rights of the alienator to the thing. The imposition on the acquirer of the burden of verifying the powers of the person from whom the alienator acquired the thing is an excessive burden for an ordinary participant in civil turnover. With regard to real estate, the acquirer must be considered good faith if the alienator’s right is registered in the state register of real estate, unless the acquirer is aware of the justified claims of third parties in relation to the real estate object.