The Various Standards for the "Good Faith" of a Purchaser

Abstract

Numerous legal rules allow a “good faith” purchaser of property to receive greater rights to the property than the transferor had to give by entitling the purchaser to take free of, or acquire priority over, a third party’s claim to or interest in the purchased property. This article explains why the phrase “good faith” means something different in each of these rules and analyzes what the term means in a few specific examples. In so doing, the article provides a framework for determining what “good faith” means in the myriad other rules that protect purchasers.