Question

Principle: Property consists of right to possess, right to use, right to alienate, and right to exclude others. Sale is complete when property gets transferred from the seller to the buyer.
Facts: ‘A’ sold his car to ‘B’. B requested A to keep the car in his care on behalf of B for one month. A agreed.

• A. Sale of car is complete.
• B. Sale of car is not complete.
• C. Sale will be completed when B keeps the car in his own care.
• D. Sale will be automatically completed after the expiry of one month.

Hint:

Sale is considered complete when the ownership of the property is transferred, not when possession is given.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is A

Here the sale and the storage arrangement need to be treated as two separate events, not one continuous transaction.

1. Sale of car is complete: A already sold the car to B, transferring ownership. B's later request that A keep the car for a month is a separate bailment arrangement and does not reopen the sale.
2. Sale of car is not complete: Nothing in the facts withholds any ownership right from B; the sale had already gone through before the storage request was made.
3. Sale completed when B keeps the car himself: This confuses physical custody with legal title. Ownership can rest with B even while A physically holds the car.
4. Sale completed automatically after one month: There is no such waiting period in the principle; the month is only how long A agreed to store the car.

The correct answer is Sale of car is complete.

Answer 2

Another way to test these options is to assume each one is true and see whether that assumption survives contact with the facts.

1. Sale of car is complete: Assume this is true, then A must have already handed over ownership before the storage conversation, and the storage request must be read as a separate, later arrangement. That is exactly consistent with the facts as given, A sold the car first, then B separately asked A to store it, so this assumption holds up.
2. Sale of car is not complete: Assume this is true, then the sale must be waiting on something, some right, some formality, some payment, that has not yet happened. But the facts describe no pending step at all between A and B regarding the sale itself; the only open item is a storage favour, which is unrelated to completing a sale. The assumption collapses for lack of any unfinished condition.
3. Sale will be completed when B keeps the car in his own care: Assume this is true, then legal completion of a sale would have to wait on physical delivery to the buyer personally. That assumption directly contradicts the principle's own framing, which ties completion to transfer of property, not to who is physically holding the item, so it cannot be squared with the rule being applied.
4. Sale will be automatically completed after the expiry of one month: Assume this is true, then the one-month figure must function as a deadline for the sale itself. But the facts attach that one month only to how long A agreed to keep the car, a caretaking detail, not a condition of the sale, so the assumption has nothing in the facts to rest on.

Only the first assumption remains consistent with the facts once tested, since the storage arrangement is a distinct, later event that has no bearing on a sale already concluded between A and B.

Therefore, the correct answer is Sale of car is complete.