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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'

#151

Post by anonporridge »

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."

Also, how does the seller disappear with that much money without being able to be IDed? That seems like a severe failure of the state.

It almost makes me wonder if this is a semi common scam wealthy folks use to take poor people's desirable homes.

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

#152

Post by kelnos »

rectang wrote: post #138
tialaramex wrote: post #39

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…

That's messed up — it pushes the blame onto the victims for not monitoring.

Please don't throw around accusations of victim-blaming like this.

No one is claiming that the victim is at fault. But I do think it's useful information to pass along that it's possible to get notified of things like this before they become big problems.

It's like... it's not my fault if I get mugged at 3am in a part of the city known for being full of violent crime, but I also should have known better than to be walking around in a part of the city known for violent crime at 3 in the morning. Just because I am the victim, it doesn't mean I couldn't have avoided an incident if I'd used common sense.

It's about outcomes and reality: sometimes we have to take on a little extra responsibility in order to make it less likely a bad thing will happen. That's not fair or just, but it's the way the world works.

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

#153

Post by mihaaly »

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."

Since it was not sold by the owner it is difficult to argue for the legality of the transaction. Whoever claims bought something has nothing in fact, the person they've been in business with had nothing to sell. Selling nothing is nothing. The records are false!

If the authorities assume things are in order here they should also be prosecuted for negligence or being accomplice and at least revert the FALSE transfer of ownership. (are we sure here that the 'buyer' is an unsuspecting party theyself?...)

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

#154

Post by amerkhalid »

iammisc wrote: post #125
aclelland wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No. If you bought it, you own it. The thief now owes the original owner damages. This is true in the United States and I assume England since it's old common law stuff. It's why thieves try to steal and then turn over immediately.

No, that’s not correct in the US. If you buy stolen property unknowingly, it can be taken away from you.

Had my TV stolen, it ended up in a pawn shop. Luckily, I had receipt and serial number. There was some paperwork and court order but pawnshop had to return TV to me.

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

#155

Post by _jal »

thereddaikon wrote: post #128
dtparr wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Sounds to me like in the UK you cant truly own land

Can you name a country that behaves differently?

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

#156

Post by pc86 »

mihaaly wrote: post #153
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."

Since it was not sold by the owner it is difficult to argue for the legality of the transaction. Whoever claims bought something has nothing in fact, the person they've been in business with had nothing to sell. Selling nothing is nothing. The records are false! If the authorities assume things are in order here they should also be prosecuted for negligence or being accomplice and at least revert the FALSE transfer o…

This sounds entirely like how you want things to work, or how you feel they "should" work in a just, fair world. It doesn't sound like you have any legal education or training to base this on.

But I greatly prefer your version of events to what happened in the article so please prove me wrong!

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

#157

Post by pmyteh »

chrisseaton wrote: post #72
krisoft wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The criminal issue doesn't involve him! Of course it does. If it is as alleged, then the home owner and the new "owner" is equally victims of the crime.

Maybe you know more about law in the UK than I, but I believe the criminal issue is between HM's Land Registry and the person who sold it, and there is only a civil issue between the rightful owner and anyone.

Criminal law in England and Wales is between the Crown (represented by a prosecutor, often but not always an arm of the state) and the alleged criminal. So the question 'who is the technical victim' isn't usually very interesting. The three salient questions here are:

1) Has the person committed an offence (probably yes: fraud by false representation, contrary to s.2 Fraud Act 2006);

2) Is there a reasonable prospect of conviction? (Who knows: will depend on the evidence); and

3) Is it in the public interest to prosecute? (Almost certainly yes).

'Who has been defrauded' doesn't even matter for establishing (1), only that the fraudster intended to make a gain for himself or a loss for someone else by making a false representation (in this case that he was the owner of the house). So in this case it really is a bit crappy from the police: if a fraud has been committed it doesn't in principle matter who complains about it, they should investigate (or at least register the crime) anyway.

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

#158

Post by thesuitonym »

kybernetyk wrote: post #84
aclelland wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is this really different than any other country? Any government (at least in uncontested territories) can come in and tell you to fuck off, and there's really very little you can do about it.

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

#159

Post by dahfizz »

rectang wrote: post #138
tialaramex wrote: post #39

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…

That's messed up — it pushes the blame onto the victims for not monitoring.

This is a pathetic and harmful attitude. You should not encourage victims (or would be victims) to be helpless.

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

#160

Post by pc86 »

_0ffh wrote: post #74
m4tthumphrey wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just signed up to this. Only alpha numeric passwords allowed. Always worries me.

I guess you'll just have to hope that they don't truncate the password after the first eight characters or so...

Hey as long as they truncate it the same way on login as they do on account creation... /s
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