131–140 of 360 posts
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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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I believe the 'quirk' here is that the fraud was able to get property ownership updated with the Land Registry, so the new owner is the official owner of record.
Sounds to me like in the UK you cant truly own land if the government can just decide it belongs to someone else.
It’s not like you can take anything with you when you’re dead, owning materials is really just a societal construct no matter which way you slice it.
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 conveyan…
Ok, now you have me curious. Whazzat?
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.
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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 conveyan…
Same here. We completed over the summer and even had to provide our marriage certificate to the bank (no idea why, are single people not allowed mortgages?). Sounds very much like the conveyancers (lawyers) screwed up massively. There still some bits of this story I don't understand. Like, how did the fraudster get access to the house in the first place? Did he break in then fix the damage and replace the locks so he…
If you've got the ID to sell the house, you certainly have enough ID to convince anyone else.
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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 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 Different ways of dealing with the problem of fraudulent transfer and property records. In the U.S., the risk is the buyer's. If the property was fraudulently transferred, the transaction is mutable. This makes the sureness of ownership, as well as the…
Sounds to me like you can only rest assured at the moment the Land Registry tells you. After that, it’s only a matter of time before some scammer sells your house out from under you. Not a great system.
For what it's worth. If you own Real Property in England, even if only a Leasehold (Long Lease e.g. 99 years) you can get the Land Registry to email you about activity or, once per year, the lack of activity for your property records. https://propertyalert.landregistry.gov.uk/ Land Registry records have a sort of poor man's locking. The buyers (or in practice their solicitor) need to first perform a "Search" which wo…
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> AT THE MOMENT, while the 'new owner' is listed in the Land Registry as owning it, and the 'old owner' isn't, the 'new owner' temporarily legally owns it Not an expert on British law, but I don't think this is the case. The new owner owns it. Not temporarily. Fully, permanently and properly. The previous owner was fraudulently deprived of it, and can likely get damages from the parties who signed off on the conveyan…
If you're not an expert on British law what makes you feel able to make such a confident and surprising claim?
I am baffled by the fact that a complete house can be had for the little sum of £131,000. That's about €150.000 in real money... I guess where I live that would get me a garage, maybe.