DiKE Der Kauf unter Eigentumsvorbehalt im schweizerischen Recht

According to the dispositive rule of Art. 184 para. 2 CO, the buyer and the seller are obliged to perform simultaneously - step by step - in the case of a contract for the sale of goods. In practice, however, this rule is often deviated from and the seller is contractually obliged to perform in advance. This is usually in the interests of the buyer, who can enjoy the desired item without having to pay for it immediately. For the seller, however, a security problem regularly arises because the transfer of ownership to the buyer is independent of the payment of the purchase price (cf. Art. 714 para. 1 CC) and because of the principle of Faustpfand (Art. 884 para. 1/3 CC), which is generally applicable in commercial transactions, there is no possibility to create a lien on the sold goods. In this case, the law offers the seller the possibility of linking the transfer of ownership to the payment of the purchase price by means of a reservation of title (Art. 715 f. CC), thereby securing his claim in rem.
The present St. Gallen dissertation deals in particular with the prerequisites and the legal consequences of this arrangement. The main focus is on aspects of property law, although problems of debt law and foreclosure law are not disregarded. In addition, selected 'extension forms' of the purchase under reservation of title are presented and analyzed, which are of outstanding practical importance, especially in Germany, but are little known and hardly studied academically in Switzerland.