"it's a civil matter" seems to be the go to excuse for British police. There's a whole TV series following property owners in the UK who have experienced issues and this response comes up way too often in the series.
Man left shocked as his house is 'stolen'
231–240 of 360 posts
Re: Man left shocked as his house is 'stolen'
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pretty much true everywhere. 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.
Possession is a physical/real property of the universe. Ownership is a legal abstraction/construct.
>Possession is a physical/real property of the universe
This assertion immediately falls apart on consideration IMO. Even in simple, controlled circumstances like football, the meaning of "possession" is subject to mutual agreement (i.e. "rules").
You could take some particular definition of "possession" as "natural" or otherwise axiomatic. This is not unheard of, but I think it's a trick of misdirection to place it in the domain of the "physical/real" when it is plainly a political matter.
Re: Man left shocked as his house is 'stolen'
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Yup, that is also why there are laws against Receiving Stolen Property [1] in the US. This is defined as:
>>According to general receiving stolen property laws, it is a crime to accept or purchase any property which you believe or have actual knowledge that it was obtained through illegal means, such as theft. However, receiving stolen property is its own separate crime and thus should not be confused with the similar criminal acts of theft, robbery, or extortion.
[1] https://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/receiving-sto...
Re: Man left shocked as his house is 'stolen'
#234For 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…
It is always nice being vigilant for all and every possible scam and fraud out there coming our ways, being ready and prepared for whatever comes from whatever direction and for whatever target of ours, going after every suspicious matters we encounter or believe we encounter, being suspitious against as much as possible preparing ourselves for all kinds that could happen out there, but shouldn't be required. If it i…
This is how I feel. I'm all for encouraging potential victims to take reasonable precautions, but especially when the system could be fixed if a few people tried, it eventually gets tiresome. I've been given free "credit monitoring" a few times because of data breaches at places that should have done a better job of protecting my data. But there is so much noise impacting my credit score that I just don't even bother looking at it anymore. I would hope this property system does better, at least. The annual "no activity" email would at least be nice occasional dose of peace-of-mind.
Re: Man left shocked as his house is 'stolen'
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
The Notary in France doesn’t necessarily fully do this job. They have an obligation of means, ie check the last 30 years of ownership and permits, but there are many cracks in that system: - Double ownership for 30 years followed by a proof of ownership from the real, hidden one; - Or simply it is the notary’s understanding that there is no record past 12 years for example, and yet there is. If they have checked “the…
Is there stories of people getting their property stolen this way?
My guess is that in France, if such a story as the article happended, the buyer would be kicked out of the house (and probably lose their money stolen by the fraudsters) but maybe I'm completely wrong.
Re: Man left shocked as his house is 'stolen'
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
But what if something fishy happened before they sold it to you, but it isn't discovered until after? Does their title insurance still cover it? For instance, if their original purchase turns out to not have been legitimate to begin with for some reason.
Yes, title insurance is a single premium but gives the owner forever coverage. This is essentially the purpose, to give the buyer confidence that they are protected for anything that may have happened that they wouldn't know about, because the seller may not even know about it and potentially it happened 100s of years ago. Where this gets kind of crazy is if you own a property and have title insurance on it from when…
But what if I'm not the owner anymore? Specifically, I buy a house and purchase title insurance on it. Later, I sell the house to you. You trust me completely, so figure you don't need to buy title insurance. Later, unexpected to all of us, it turns out that my original purchase was somehow flawed, and someone else actually owns the house. You now ask me to now invoke my title insurance, and (since I'm such a nice guy) reimburse you. So I call up my title insurance company, and explain that while I no longer even think I own the house, something was amiss in my original purchase, and I want them to reimburse me. The title insurance company agrees that there was a problem at the time of my purchase. Will they then say "Yes, you're right, the check is in the mail" or "No, be that as it may, once you 'sold' the house we're off the hook; tell the guy who 'bought' it from you to contact their title insurance company"?
Re: Man left shocked as his house is 'stolen'
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
Doesn't the registry have some level of 'duty of care'?
Seems like the ID was pretty convincing, and the real owner (assuming the paper did their due diligence!) wasn’t there at the property - so everyone involved may have done a decent amount of checking, but it wasn’t enough because the fraudster knew how to play the system to get through the normal hurdles. It does happen. Sounds like a court needs to dig in and figure out what is going on for sure.
It sounds like a sophisticated fraud. They probably target clergy or others who have well known public schedules. I assume there is an equivalent of title insurance in the UK that will pay out though.
Re: Man left shocked as his house is 'stolen'
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I paid off my flat in Edinburgh back in 2016 or so, and in exchange I received a huge bundle of papers "the deeds", from the bank. I spent a fun evening flicking through the records of owners, the price they'd paid for it, and the few details provided (occupation, etc). All dating back to when the building was built in 1890 or so. Later I left the country, and moved to Finland. After a year or two here I wanted to se…
When the land registry was digitised they got the land boundaries from the Ordnance Survey maps. The Ordnance Survey got them from tracing aerial photos. When property changes hands for the first time since the digital system was introduced the land boundaries from the OS mapping agency have to be checked against the original deeds as they are almost always slightly wrong, e.g my kitchen was shown as being partly in my neighbour’s garden according to the digital map.
Re: Man left shocked as his house is 'stolen'
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seems like the ID was pretty convincing, and the real owner (assuming the paper did their due diligence!) wasn’t there at the property - so everyone involved may have done a decent amount of checking, but it wasn’t enough because the fraudster knew how to play the system to get through the normal hurdles. It does happen. Sounds like a court needs to dig in and figure out what is going on for sure.
It sounds like a sophisticated fraud. They probably target clergy or others who have well known public schedules. I assume there is an equivalent of title insurance in the UK that will pay out though.
The original owner is not going to be the one with title insurance though, that's usually bought by the buyer, not the seller, especially not a seller who isn't even aware that there is a transaction.
Re: Man left shocked as his house is 'stolen'
#240"You and Yours obtained the driving licence used to impersonate Mr Hall" ... what? who? And then, "Once the house was sold to the new owner for £131,000 by the person impersonating Mr Hall, they legally owned it." The people who sold the house did not have the right to sell the house because they did not own it. The person who bought it does not own it since it was not legally sold.
You and Yours is a long running consumer affairs show on BBC Radio.