Abstract: Provided are systems and methods that facilitate providing permission to entities of a database. A system includes a component that authorizes a principal of a containing entity to grant a permission to that entity, and a component that grants the permission to the containing entity, the grantee of the permission inherits a set of permissions to one or more entities contained by the containing entity. When a permission is granted to a parent in a hierarchy of a relational database, the permission is inherited by the child nodes. Also provided is a method for transferring ownership of entities in a relational database. The method includes a two-part handshake that can be audited to avoid repudiation issues.