Xu Ying and Wang Li are husband and wife. They purchased a Santana sedan in 1998 and they ran a rental business together. On March 6, 1999, due to family conflicts, a quarrel and dispute broke out between the two parties. In anger, Wang Li drove away the Santana car and lived alone away from home. On April 1, Wang Li contacted Liu to discuss selling the Santana sedan to Liu. The two parties agreed on a price of 120,000 yuan, delivered the car and the entire purchase price on the same day, and went to the local vehicle management department to handle the car ownership transfer procedures. When the staff asked Wang Li's husband for his opinion on selling the car, Wang Li panicked and said that her husband had been working away from home for a long time and did not care about the family, so she went through the car purchase and sale procedures and transferred the vehicle to Liu's name. Ten days later, Xu Ying discovered the matter and asked Liu for a car, but Liu refused. Xu Ying filed a lawsuit with the People's Court with Wang Li as the defendant and Liu as the third party, demanding Liu return the vehicle.
Question: Can Xu Ying get the vehicle back from somewhere in Liu?
Answer: The key to this case lies in the application of the bona fide acquisition system. Acquisition in good faith, also known as immediate acquisition, refers to a property occupier who has no right to dispose of other people's property. After illegally transferring the property he or she possesses to a third party, if the transferee acted in good faith when acquiring the property, the property owner shall obtain the property in accordance with the law. A system in which the original property owner cannot require the transferee to return the property after acquiring ownership of the property. The result of the acquisition in good faith is that the original owner of the thing loses its ownership, and the transferee in good faith acquires the ownership.
In this case, when Wang Li and Liu were going through the car ownership transfer procedures, Wang Li falsely claimed that one of the owners of the car, Xu Ying, had been working away from home for a long time and did not care about family affairs, which made Liu mistakenly believe that Wang Li has the right to dispose of (i.e. sell) the car. It can be seen that Liu bought the car out of good faith. Since Liu purchased the car in good faith, that is, he did not know that Liu had no right to dispose of the car alone, and he also paid the full purchase price and went through the vehicle transfer procedures, all of which are consistent with the requirements of the good-faith acquisition system, therefore, it can be applied Goodwill system. In other words, the vehicle sales relationship between Wang Li and Liu is legal and valid.
In addition, according to the provisions of the Supreme People's Court's "Opinions on Several Issues Concerning the Implementation of the General Principles of the People's Republic of China and Civil Law (Trial)": "Someone from *** and *** have questions about* ** owns the property and enjoys the same rights and assumes the same obligations. During the period of the relationship between *** and ***, if some *** persons dispose of ***'s property without authorization, it will generally be deemed invalid. "However, if a third party acquires the property in good faith and for compensation, the legitimate rights and interests of the third party shall be protected, and the person who disposes of the property without authorization shall compensate for the losses suffered by other parties." This provision also explains. Xu Ying can ask Wang Li for compensation for losses.
To sum up, we believe that the disposal of property owned by *** and *** should be carried out by *** and *** in concert. In principle, the unauthorized disposal by one party should be Invalid; however, if the third party acquires the property in good faith and with compensation, the establishment of the sales relationship should be confirmed in accordance with the principle of acquisition in good faith and the legitimate interests of the bona fide third party should be protected. The third party in this case, Mr. Liu, was in good faith in buying and selling the car. He paid the car payment, obtained the car, and went through the vehicle ownership transfer procedures. The vehicle purchase and sale relationship was established.
Finally, the court determined that the sales relationship was valid. As for Xu Ying's losses, Wang Li, who disposed of (sold) the vehicle without authorization, should be compensated.