GOOD FAITH ACQUISITION OF USED MOTOR VEHICLES PURCHASED ABROAD: SOME OBSERVATIONS AND CRITICAL REMARKS ON SERBIAN CASE LAW
GOOD FAITH ACQUISITION OF USED MOTOR VEHICLES PURCHASED ABROAD: SOME OBSERVATIONS AND CRITICAL REMARKS ON SERBIAN CASE LAW

Summary/Abstract: In the past decade Serbian courts have discussed several cases in which the main legal issue was whether the Serbian citizen who bought a used motor vehicle with hidden deficiencies from a non-owner (car dealer) in a foreign country acquired the ownership of that vehicle in good faith. In all these cases the courts directly applied Serbian property law, failing to recognize the presence of a foreign element in the legal dispute, i.e. the fact that the purchase and delivery of the vehicle occurred in a foreign country. The appearance of a foreign element in the legal relationship obliges the courts to apply the rules of private international law (i.e. conflict rules) in order to determine which national law (domestic or foreign) shall be applicable to the case. These rules have been ignored by Serbian courts which consequently led to direct application of Serbian rules on good faith acquisition that were more favorable than the rules of the law of a foreign country whose application would had been ordered by Serbian conflict rules. In this paper the author deals with the problem above by analyzing and discussing the Serbian substantial law on good faith acquisition of ownership (particularly of motor vehicles), Serbian rules of private international law as well as Serbian case law in this matter.

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