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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'

#81

Post by ineedasername »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #75
tialaramex wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Land Registry is the final arbitor of who owns what in England and Wales. So yes, right now the Registry says this New Owner owns this property, there is no way to contest this in a court of law, the official Land Registry paperwork is de jure supreme, it has the same legal effect as if an Officer from the Registry was in Court to say yup, that's who owns this property says the Crown. But, of course what we've go…

> The Land Registry is the final arbitor of who owns what in England and Wales. I don't think that's true because for instance there are still properties unregistered (as mandatory registration was phased in until 1990). Certainly it seems possible to rectify the Register, not least in case of fraud [1] Also, in English law, a valid sale of land must meet strict criteria, including being made by Deed. I am not a lawy…

It seems to be true: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rectification-and...

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

#82

Post by AtlasBarfed »

yupper32 wrote: post #67
irrational wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in the USA, this year we both sold our previous home and purchased our new home without the use of signage, open houses, tours, realtors, etc. We found the house we bought and found the buyers of our old house through our network of friends. We filled out all the paperwork from forms we printed off online. The title company took care of everything after that. It was all done completely online until the very la…

> I live in the USA, this year we both sold our previous home and purchased our new home without the use of signage, open houses, tours, realtors, etc. We found the house we bought and found the buyers of our old house through our network of friends. We filled out all the paperwork from forms we printed off online. Surely you left a massive amount of money on the table then, right?

Sounds like they avoided the 4-7% realtor commissions.

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

#84

Post by kybernetyk »

aclelland wrote: post #21
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."

Yeah, that part confused me to. I'm pretty sure that if I bought a stolen xbox from some guy on a street corner and the Police find me with it, they'd not throw up their hands and say "oh well, I guess you own it now, on your way". I assume there is a specific legal quirk with property ownership.

The quirk is that in the UK you’re not a free man but only a subject and in the end the crown owns everything and now fuck off, filthy peasant, before the king sends his men.

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

#85

Post by closeparen »

pjdemers wrote: post #18

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…

This seems backwards. To evict someone you have to swear up and down that you're going to occupy the place yourself. People get prosecuted for e.g. doing an owner-move-in eviction and then selling to a developer. The old owner doesn't have a legal basis to get rid of the tenant, but the new owner does.

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

#88

Post by pdmccormick »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #41
lbriner wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I wonder if that means they don't pay all that much compensation on a case by case basis, or if there isn't that much fraud occurring to begin with.

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

#89

Post by tialaramex »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #75
tialaramex wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Land Registry is the final arbitor of who owns what in England and Wales. So yes, right now the Registry says this New Owner owns this property, there is no way to contest this in a court of law, the official Land Registry paperwork is de jure supreme, it has the same legal effect as if an Officer from the Registry was in Court to say yup, that's who owns this property says the Crown. But, of course what we've go…

> The Land Registry is the final arbitor of who owns what in England and Wales. I don't think that's true because for instance there are still properties unregistered (as mandatory registration was phased in until 1990). Certainly it seems possible to rectify the Register, not least in case of fraud [1] Also, in English law, a valid sale of land must meet strict criteria, including being made by Deed. I am not a lawy…

> there are still properties unregistered

But, if the Registry says your property is registered, and that Jim owns it, the fact you say it isn't registered doesn't trump that. You would need to persuade a Court that the Registry is wrong, and then they'd need to tell the Registry to fix that. Until both those things happen, Jim owns it.

> I am not a lawyer but I don't see how the Deed can valid in this case since it did not involve the legal owner at all!

Prima Facie there's a Deed which says the legal owner sold it. Now we've got this chap, says he's the legal owner, says he never signed that paperwork. That's a contradiction, which is true? So that's the sort of problem we have Courts for.

My guess is, this chap is exactly who he says he is, there's a fraudster somewhere with £131000 of somebody else's money who won't show up to court.

But of course it's also possible this is a different fraud in progress. The chap who claims it was "stolen" has £131000 in an account in his friend's name, and now wants both the house and the money.

A judge gets to decide the truth of the matter. Often things are clear cut (e.g. the "driving license" proves to be a badly photocopied Photoshop image, a solicitor's clerk admits a "face to face" transaction actually took place on Zoom, the bank account is traced to a known crook who fled the country last week) but sometimes it's just very hard to decide, which is why we need smart, honest people to do that job and decide what's a fair outcome when it's unclear.

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

#90

Post by White_Wolf »

Causality1 wrote: post #70
pmyteh wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's right, I think. The property can be recovered from the fraudster, but not from an innocent subsequent purchaser. There is at least some form of compensation scheme by the Land Registry. And 'selling on behalf of someone who isn't the actual owner' certainly can found a liability claim on the solicitor.

That's wild. Is there any other case where someone gets to keep stolen property as long as they didn't know it was stolen? I have to say if I was in the victim's position, my reaction would probably land me in prison for longer than the fraudster.

I second that. If I'd end up losing my house to something like this... Let's just say nobody would get it by the end of it.
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