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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'

#41

Post by tonyedgecombe »

lbriner wrote: post #32
dmoy wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on how Title law works in the jurisdiction. I don't know how it works in this part of the UK, but in many states in the US, the buyer would left holding the bag - the original homeowner would keep the property. It's one reason in the US that most property sales include a purchase of title insurance.

I'm not a lawyer but the article implies that once the title is transferred, the new owner owns it! There might be liability with the Solicitor or the Land Registry, otherwise it would appear to be incredibly unfair!

The article says "The Land Registry paid out a total of £3.5m in compensation for fraud last year." which tends to imply they have some liability.

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

#42

Post by lbriner »

krisoft wrote: post #36
chrisseaton wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'.

> The key problem is that it is a civil matter. No. The criminal matter, as alleged, is that someone scammed the buyer, the solicitors and the Land Registry into believing that they are who they were not. That is not a civil matter, it is I believe fraud. If a bloke sells their house, but then gets cold feet, or not happy with the compensation that is a civil matter. This is not what is alleged.

Yes, it is unclear why the police told him it was civil since fraud is "misrepresentation for a gain", which the fraudulent seller presumably did.

Maybe the argument is that without proof that the fraudulent seller made a gain, it is merely a Tort and not Fraud?

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

#44

Post by dragonwriter »

lbriner wrote: post #37
ballenf wrote: post #20

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 reve…

That's not what they said. They said it was not criminal but civil, which a lot of contract and tort law falls under, it means the police won't do the investigation for you. I don't know why they considered that this was not fraud, which is criminal but maybe they couldn't point to a detail that showed where the fraud took place. They might also have been wrong to say that!

> the police won't do the investigation for you

Even in criminal matters, they don't do the investigation for you, they do it for public prosecutors, which may or may not have incidental utility to you.

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

#45

Post by rkangel »

I have a friend who was almost the buyer of a house in the UK in a very similar situation. Fundamentally, it relied on the seller buying counterfeit identity documents (passport and driving licence) off the internet. That way, in theory, the identity checks were all conducted.

There was the suggestion that the seller's solicitor was in on it, but no firm evidence. The seller has been arrested at least.

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

#46

Post by tonyedgecombe »

lbriner wrote: post #37
ballenf wrote: post #20

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 reve…

That's not what they said. They said it was not criminal but civil, which a lot of contract and tort law falls under, it means the police won't do the investigation for you. I don't know why they considered that this was not fraud, which is criminal but maybe they couldn't point to a detail that showed where the fraud took place. They might also have been wrong to say that!

The article says "Police initially told him it was not fraud but are now investigating." My guess is the police couldn't be bothered.

A friend of mine had a problem with squatters moving into his house (which wasn't empty). Initially the police refused to get involved until he got his solicitor to point out it was a criminal issue.

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

#47

Post by lbriner »

staticman2 wrote: post #10
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?

You need a court case to determine if it was stolen is presumably the issue. You don't want police running around "taking people's house back" without due process, presumbly.

No, I think the issue is that police would have no power to "take the house back" because it was legally purchased. They could investigate the fraud committed by the seller against other organisations but specifically, the real owner is not the victim of criminal fraud.

I don't think he will have any ablity to forceably reobtain the house, although potentially, if he refunded the buyers money (after getting it from the accused), they might agree to give it to him back. On the other hand, if already cleared, it would probably be easier for the real owner to get his money back and buy somewhere else.

Very sad though.

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

#48

Post by chrisseaton »

rkangel wrote: post #40
chrisseaton wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'.

Actually, in this case it should be both. It is a civil matter to get the house back, but obviously there was also some criminal fraud involved. The victim of the fraud though is presumably the land registry rather than the house owner.

> It is a civil matter to get the house back

Well that's what he cares about.

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

#49

Post by chrisseaton »

krisoft wrote: post #36
chrisseaton wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'.

> The key problem is that it is a civil matter. No. The criminal matter, as alleged, is that someone scammed the buyer, the solicitors and the Land Registry into believing that they are who they were not. That is not a civil matter, it is I believe fraud. If a bloke sells their house, but then gets cold feet, or not happy with the compensation that is a civil matter. This is not what is alleged.

> The criminal matter, as alleged, is that someone scammed the buyer, the solicitors and the Land Registry

Did you notice who you didn't list there?

The home owner.

The criminal issue doesn't involve him!

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

#50

Post by klyrs »

op00to wrote: post #29
klyrs wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Who keeps their deed in the house? When I bought my first house, my realtor basically steered us right into a bank to open a safe deposit box.

Not saying it's the best of ideas (especially in light of this story), but I think that a lot of people do it.
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