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Legal Terms – Conversion
Conversion is the tort of wrongfully handling someone else's property in a way that results in the owner's rights being denied or rights that are contradictory with the owner's being asserted. Acts of conversion include stealing items, mishandling them, destroying them, or refusing to give them back. Under the Torts (Interference with Goods) Act of 1977, simple negligence that results in the loss or destruction of goods provides a basis for responsibility rather than conversion under common law. Contractual rights and other intangible property are not covered by the tort (OBG Ltd v Allan [2007] UKHL 21, [2008] 1 AC 1). In a conversion case, the claimant must demonstrate that, at the time of the defendant's wrongdoing, he was the rightful owner, possessor, or possessor of the commodities in question (see The defendant's innocence is not a defense, with a few notable exceptions. 2. (in equity) The transformation of one type of property into another, whether true or imagined. When land is sold, for instance, the people who are entitled to the money instead have an interest in the money that symbolizes the land. It was crucial to determine whether a person entitled to property had interests in land or in the revenues of its sale before 1926 (and to a lesser extent after then). To leave the assessment of these rights up to the moment of a sale could have resulted in unfairness and uncertainty. According to the doctrine of conversion, equity would presume that the property had been converted immediately if there was an obligation to do so: "equity looks on that as done which ought to have been done". The Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act 1996 eliminated this theory, effective January 1, 1997.
Conversion is the tort of wrongfully handling someone else's property in a way that results in the owner's rights being denied or rights that are contradictory with the owner's being asserted. Acts of conversion include stealing items, mishandling them, destroying them, or refusing to give them back. Under the Torts (Interference with Goods) Act of 1977, simple negligence that results in the loss or destruction of goods provides a basis for responsibility rather than conversion under common law. Contractual rights and other intangible property are not covered by the tort (OBG Ltd v Allan [2007] UKHL 21, [2008] 1 AC 1). In a conversion case, the claimant must demonstrate that, at the time of the defendant's wrongdoing, he was the rightful owner, possessor, or possessor of the commodities in question (see The defendant's innocence is not a defense, with a few notable exceptions. 2. (in equity) The transformation of one type of property into another, whether true or imagined. When land is sold, for instance, the people who are entitled to the money instead have an interest in the money that symbolizes the land. It was crucial to determine whether a person entitled to property had interests in land or in the revenues of its sale before 1926 (and to a lesser extent after then). To leave the assessment of these rights up to the moment of a sale could have resulted in unfairness and uncertainty. According to the doctrine of conversion, equity would presume that the property had been converted immediately if there was an obligation to do so: "equity looks on that as done which ought to have been done". The Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act 1996 eliminated this theory, effective January 1, 1997.
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