Floating Rights

Abstract

There are a number of situations where it is possible to say that a person may, and in some cases almost certainly will, get an interest in property at some time in the future. However, until that time there is some degree of uncertainty: there is usually some risk that no interest will be acquired and there may be uncertainty as to the identity of the property or the nature of the interest. This article deals with the interim period between the act or event that initiates the interest and its final acquisition. It considers the approaches taken by the courts to the question of what rights, if any, come into existence during that interim period and whether there is a distinct entity or interest that can be described as a “floating right”.

The Beneficiary's Ownership Rights in the Trust Res in a Liberal Property Regime

“…In both types of cases, we need to identify 'some kind of amorphous, changeable, determinable and flexible, yet proprietary, right'. 118 This is not the place to delineate the precise contours of this right; for our purposes it is enough to say that in liberal property theory a right that hovers over the trust property until the vagueness is resolved can be proprietary in nature. The temporary ambivalence can be contained within the liberal conception of property, which acknowledges, as we've seen, both the notion that ownership may be divided among property rightholders and the fact that the authority of some of these rightholders may be temporarily muted.…”