Corporeal and incorporeal chattels meaning

Corporeal and incorporeal chattels describes the distinction between tangible personal property and intangible personal rights. Corporeal chattels are physical movable items capable of possession and delivery (for example, vehicles, machinery, stock-in-trade, artworks and physical cash). Incorporeal chattels comprise intangible personal property, being rights enforceable by action rather than by taking physical possession, such as debts and other choses in action, bank balances, shares, intellectual property and many contractual rights. This is a descriptive common law categorisation (mirroring the distinction between choses in possession and choses in action), used across property, commercial, insolvency and security law. It matters because different rules govern transfer, security and remedies: corporeal chattels are typically transferred by delivery and can be subject to bailment, pledge and conversion claims, whereas incorporeal chattels are transferred by assignment or novation and are commonly charged or assigned by way of security, with relief obtained by enforcing the underlying right. Terminology is broadly consistent in England & Wales, Northern Ireland and Ireland. Scots law uses the equivalent concepts of corporeal and incorporeal moveables: title to corporeal moveables normally passes by delivery; incorporeal moveables by assignation.