A owns a car, a caravan, some furniture and several bags of wheat harvested from his own fields.

In this example, various different 'things' are mentioned. They are very different from each other, but have in common that they are considered to be things that are 'moveable' rather than 'fixed'. In Australian law, moveable property is often referred to as a 'chattel'. The word chattel is derived from the old French word for cattle.

That fact that a car is moveable is obvious.

A caravan, although it is often parked for long periods on land, is not actually built on the land, or permanently attached to it, and so it is considered 'moveable'. The same would be true of a tent.

Items of furniture (tables, chairs and the like) are considered to be chattels even though they are normally placed within a house. This is because furniture is not permanently attached to the house and does not form part of the house itself.

The bags of wheat must be distinguished from growing crops. In the previous example, we saw that things rooted to the land are considered to be part of the land itself and therefore immoveable. However, once harvested (and so separated from the land) crops become chattels.