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Man left shocked as his house is 'stolen'

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Man left shocked as his house is 'stolen'

#11

Post by cameronh90 »

freeqaz wrote: post #2

Is it roughly the same to "prove" your identity in the US as it is in the UK? In the US, at least for most credit checks, you just need your SSN, some public record data about where you've lived, and personal data (name, DOB, etc). It's largely because there is no "National ID" system in the US (due to political reasons). That makes it hard for companies to track people, and the SSN is the only number that people con…

Currently buying a house in the UK and it involved rather a lot of ID verification. I had to provide, to the bank, estate agent, mortgage broker and lawyers, the following: passport, driving license, utility bills, payslips, source of funds, bank statements, app-based liveness verification and more.

However, in the event of an off-market cash transaction, a lot fewer parties are involved - potentially just a conveyancer/solicitor. I'm guessing it's them who hugely dropped the ball in identity verification.

Re: Man left shocked as his house is 'stolen'

#12

Post by quietbritishjim »

klyrs wrote: post #7
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #5

I'm in the US. What I see is that stolen+sold property tends to belong to the original owner, not the purchaser. Is it different in the UK?

I'm not sure the police would do anything different in the US. I'm guessing that proper owner, like most people, kept the deed in his house -- which was emptied of his belongings and sold. Without that, the police don't have much to act on.

Paper deeds are no longer relevant to property ownership in the UK. The HM Land Registry records are authoritative (subject to legal challenges). See for example: https://hmlandregistry.blog.gov.uk/2018/02/19/title-deeds/

Edit: technically they are still relevant if the property has not been sold since the records were digitised in the 1990s

Re: Man left shocked as his house is 'stolen'

#13

Post by superfamicom »

I live in the US and had my debit card (number only, one of the bigger data leaks) stolen years ago and ever since then my bank will check every purchase with me over $300. It was really frustrating for years until someone else took my card (from another data leak) and was easily stopped and new card issued. I cannot imagine someone selling my home without involving me, or at the very least without several other of my personal contact methods also compromised at the same time.

Re: Man left shocked as his house is 'stolen'

#14

Post by chrisseaton »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #5

I'm in the US. What I see is that stolen+sold property tends to belong to the original owner, not the purchaser. Is it different in the UK?

The key problem is that it is a civil matter. It's like a contract dispute - it's not a police matter. Obviously for the individual it's a major life-changing disaster... but in the eyes of the state it's equivalent to 'we ordered four cases of Coca-Cola but our vendor only delivered three'.

Re: Man left shocked as his house is 'stolen'

#15

Post by Androider »

> Once the house was sold to the new owner for £131,000 by the person impersonating Mr Hall, they legally owned it.

That's nuts. Why isn't it the case that the person who failed to properly vet the seller is out of £131,000 and the house? So I can "buy" a local mansion and then say "oops, I didn't know this random guy didn't own it. Oh well."

Re: Man left shocked as his house is 'stolen'

#16

Post by bogle »

klyrs wrote: post #7
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #5

I'm in the US. What I see is that stolen+sold property tends to belong to the original owner, not the purchaser. Is it different in the UK?

I'm not sure the police would do anything different in the US. I'm guessing that proper owner, like most people, kept the deed in his house -- which was emptied of his belongings and sold. Without that, the police don't have much to act on.

In England the owner doesn't have the deeds, although they may obtain a copy. It's digital with the Land Registry. Scotland, incidentally, has the oldest land registry in the world (1617 CE), the Sasines.

Re: Man left shocked as his house is 'stolen'

#17

Post by marcus_holmes »

lbriner wrote: post #3
freeqaz wrote: post #2

Is it roughly the same to "prove" your identity in the US as it is in the UK? In the US, at least for most credit checks, you just need your SSN, some public record data about where you've lived, and personal data (name, DOB, etc). It's largely because there is no "National ID" system in the US (due to political reasons). That makes it hard for companies to track people, and the SSN is the only number that people con…

It sounds like the fraudster got a copy of the real person's driving licence, although he must have looked the real person presumably. A Solicitor has to due the legal due-diligence to make sure they have the right to sell including usually ownership of the title deeds but if you don't have the title deeds and they are held by the Land Registry in name only, this is fairly easy to get around. I smell an insurance cla…

though presumably in "these trying times" the entire transaction was done remotely and so the proof of ID was images/photos/scans rather than seeing the originals - a lot easier to forge and alter

Re: Man left shocked as his house is 'stolen'

#18

Post by pjdemers »

In the US, there is title insurance. If the seller didn't have the legal right to sell the house, the house reverts to the legal owner, and the buyer is paid back by the insurance. It's not possible to get a mortgage without title insurance, and a cash buyer would be nuts to not demand it from the seller. In some states (example, California) it can get more complicated, though, because the right to sell a house isn't the same thing as the right to live in it. They buyer may own the house, but not have the right to force the current occupants to leave. That's why it's important to state in the contract that the house must be completely empty before the seller gets paid, and every month that it is not completely empty, a few thousand dollars is subtracted from the purchase price.

Re: Man left shocked as his house is 'stolen'

#19

Post by sofixa »

Androider wrote: post #15

> Once the house was sold to the new owner for £131,000 by the person impersonating Mr Hall, they legally owned it. That's nuts. Why isn't it the case that the person who failed to properly vet the seller is out of £131,000 and the house? So I can "buy" a local mansion and then say "oops, I didn't know this random guy didn't own it. Oh well."

In France it's the notary's job ( who are the only ones who can validate a sale) to ensure that the seller is who they say they are, and that they do actually own the land/house/apartment. Wonder how that works across the Channel and whose responsibility it was.

Re: Man left shocked as his house is 'stolen'

#20

Post by ballenf »

While people decry the inability for crypto transactions to be adjudicated in court, what we don't talk about as much is that this is also the direction of non-crypto transactions. As the article stated, the police initially refused to even consider the theft of the man's house a crime.

We used to say possession is 9/10ths of the law. Now it seems the algorithm is 9/10ths of the law.

You have maybe 10% chance to reverse a transaction that was approved by the computers. Or at least we're headed that way.

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