THE CONCEPT OF OWNERSHIP & POSSESSION AND

DIFFERENT KINDS OF OWNERSHIP

Owner & Possession are the two important concept of Jurisprudence. Normally these two are
considered as the same but, these are two different concepts and have different consequences.
Keeping in view the importance of these two concepts we are going to study these separately and
in detail.

Meaning of Ownership:
The term Ownership is derived from Latin word “own” which means “to have or to hold a thing”
One holds a thing as his own is called owner and will have the right of ownership over it.
Therefore, the term ownership literally means legitimate and absolute right of a person over a
thing.
Definition of Ownership by Jurist:
According to Holland:
“Ownership is a plenary control over an object"
According to him the owner has three rights on the object - 1) Possession 2) Enjoyment and
3) Disposition
According to him the plenary control covers these three rights. If anyone has these three rights
over a thing it means he has plenary control and is the owner.
According to Hibbert:
According to him “Ownership is a bundle of rights”

He said that these rights includes:

1. Right to use a thing
2. Right to exclude others from using the thing
3. Right to dispose of the thing
4. Right to destroy
Ownership also consists of a complex web of many rights, all of which are right in rem.
So here we can say that the ownership is actually the sum of the rights of possession, the right of
disposition and even the right of destruction. The term ownership refers to the legal right to
possess anything. When someone has legal rights over a property, it can be said that they own it.

DIFFERENT KINDS OF OWNERSHIP:

There are different kinds of ownership which are as under:
A. Corporeal Ownership and Incorporeal Ownership
B. B. Trust & Beneficial Ownership
C. C. Legal & Equitable Ownership
D. D. Sole and Co-Ownership
 E. E. Vested & Contingent Ownership

a) Corporeal & Incorporeal Ownership

Corporeal Ownership is the complete ownership on material objects like Car, House, Land etc.
Incorporeal ownership is the ownership on immaterial thing like of a right. Ownership of a
copyright, trademark, patent is incorporeal.

a) Trust and Beneficial Ownership

Trust ownership is an example of duplicate ownership. Trustee is nominal or legal owner. In the
eye of law, the trustee represents his beneficiary.
Illustration:
If property is given to A on trust for B, A would be trustee and B would be the beneficiary. A
would be the legal owner of the property and B would be beneficial owner. Here A is under
obligation to use the property only for the benefit of B.

b) Legal and Equitable Ownership

Legal ownership is the outcome of common law of England given by common law court. On the
other hand, equitable ownership is the outcome of law of equity.

c) Sole & Co-Ownership

In sole ownership there is only one owner. One person constituted as an owner to the exclusion
of the others.
Example - A owns a house or land exclusively.
When two or more persons jointly own a property, they are called co-owners. The concept is not
exclusive of any individual, but it is exclusive ownership of group of persons.
Example - Partnership Property, Coparcenary (partnership in inheritance)
d) Vested & Contingent Ownership
Vested ownership is complete itself. It is independent of condition.
Example: X transfers property to Y against a sale deed, or gift deed. Y's ownership in the
property is vested.

The word contingency means happening or non-happening of an uncertain future event. A

contingent ownership is one, which is dependent upon condition, and becomes complete upon
the contingency.
Like if I say that I will sale my house to Asim, if there rains tomorrow. Raining tomorrow is the
uncertain event which may or may not occur.
 POSSESSION
Most of us often confuse the terms ‘ownership’ and ‘possession’ and use them as synonyms.
However, in law, both these terms have distinct legal definitions that are quite distinguished.
It means that both are different in the law.
Meaning of Possession:
“Possession” literally means “physical control over a thing or an object’.
Definition of Possession:
According to Salmond “Possession is the continuing exercise of a claim to the exclusive use of
an object”.
Possession is the most basic relation between man and a thing.
Elements of Possession:
The possession has the following two elements:
a. Animus or Intention
b. Corpus
a. Animus or Intention:
To have a physical control over a thing the animus or intention is required. We can also say
the Animus is the intention to hold possession over a thing.
Example: While having shopping, we only go to concerned shop as we have the intention
to have physical control over that particular thing.
b. Corpus:
Corpus means the thing on which we want to have control.
The main difference between possession and ownership is that possession is requiring a physical
custody or control of an object while ownership is the right through which something goes to
someone. Power and purpose to control a thing are significant in the theory of possession.

Transfer of possession is comparatively easy than the transfer of ownership. The possession has
limited rights, the possessor is not given rights of residuary power.