I came across a situation recently which left me wondering what the legal outcome was. It's a little academic, since it'll never actually come to pass, but I'd be interested in hearing the legal theories behind it.
The TL;DR of the story:
I moved into a rental property. The existing wifi was terrible, so I spent a couple of weeks going back and forth with the landlord and the ISP to sort it out. Despite it being an ISP issue, the ISP offered us £50 to sort the issue out ourselves. I came up with a solution that stayed almost within that £50, proposed it, and the landlord and ISP were happy.
Said solution involved buying a few bits of network hardware. The landlords were happy with this, but they said that instead of them buying the hardware for me with the ISP's 'contribution', I should buy the hardware and they would reimburse me up to a maximum of £60 (the ISP's £50, plus a 'goodwill gesture' from them of £10 max).
Long story short, I bought the hardware for around £58. I'm still waiting on the reimbursement, but it'll come through as soon as the banks clear it.
And now to the question. Whose is the ownership of these various bits of network hardware?
- Mine, because I bought them and just received the same amount back from the landlord (i.e. there was no transfer of ownership due to reimbursement); or
- Theirs, because they paid me the £58 with the intention of that paying for the hardware (i.e. the reimbursement transfers ownership to them)?