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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'

#241

Post by jonp888 »

freeqaz wrote: post #2

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…

The UK also has national ID system. It is almost unique in Europe in this respect.

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

#242

Post by brightball »

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…

In the US I’ve always been told it’s in the best interest of a home owner to always have some type of bank loan on the property. Mortgage, even a zero balance HELOC. Supposedly, this allows the bank to ensure there’s no title fraud because they maintain a claim to it.

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

#243

Post by jonny_eh »

torstenvl wrote: post #212
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

It isn't about property and power, though. It's about knowledge and power. The buyer knows there's a transaction being contemplated. The buyer knows how to contact the seller and/or their agents. The owner does not. The predominant U.S. system requires buyers to guard against known unknowns. The U.K. system requires owners to guard against unknown unknowns. It's a least-cost-avoider problem, and it has a clear answer…

Also the buyer is either a scammer or a dupe. The owner is just a victim. Either way, the buyer should clearly be held responsible and cover all costs to resolve.

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

#244

Post by closeparen »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #221
closeparen wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> To evict someone you have to swear up and down that you're going to occupy the place yourself. Where do you get this from? It's not like any US law I've ever heard of. For the evictions I've worked on, the homeowner simply wanted the tenants out (non-payment, etc) so they could re-rent or sell the property. They didn't ever have to live there.

https://sftu.org/justcauses/

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

#245

Post by zeristor »

Seemingly the gem Earth of the issue is the proof of identity.

Mention is made of a driving licence being obtained to open a bank account, was this the actual Driving licence? If it had been faked then the bank should have raised a flag.

There is a fair amount about having a government account to log in for taxes etc, is this robust enough to be used in property transaction like this? I not why?

Will this example highlight a number of other similar cases? Will it prompt others to try it?

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

#246

Post by mindslight »

freeqaz wrote: post #2

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…

There is no such thing as "getting this right" the way you're thinking. No matter what you choose, any possible source of truth will be imperfect. In this case, the UK Land Registry is used as a source of truth, but didn't thoroughly check IDs. Seemingly because the UK ID system is used as a source of truth, but then itself failed in some way.

With an ambient concept of ownership, one is inherently left with a tradeoff between trusting the system as defined and being able to override it. In fact, this is exactly what caused this failure of the victim being unable to get their house back - compared to the common law deed system still prevalent in the US, whereby the buyer would be left without any title and would have to fall back on title insurance to be made whole.

The only way to eliminate fraud is to define away right and wrong, creating a single source of truth ala Bitcoin [0]. In Bitcoin if you have the privkey to a pubkey, then you can transfer value to a new pubkey, period - there is no such thing as theft, as it has been defined away. But obviously this isn't the kind of harsh regime people have in mind when they say they want to eliminate fraud.

FWIW the political problem in the US preventing national ID is the complete lack of ability to reign in corporate behavior. The ongoing abuse of SSN and drivers license numbers by private surveillance companies needs to be stopped (by something akin to the GDPR) before it would make any sense to talk about creating even stronger identification.

[0] Actually this is going to fail for Bitcoin as well, because it lacks the key ecash property of untraceability. Since it lacks fungibility, it's only a matter of time until courts routinely override the computational system with their own version of truth.

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

#247

Post by AlexCoventry »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #92
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 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…

> If you consider each country's history with respect to property and power, it makes sense.

Could you elaborate on that, please? I don't know which historical aspects you're referring to.

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

#248

Post by iso1631 »

lbriner wrote: post #35
superfamicom wrote: post #13

I live in the US and had my debit card (number only, one of the bigger data leaks) stolen years ago and ever since then my bank will check every purchase with me over $300. It was really frustrating for years until someone else took my card (from another data leak) and was easily stopped and new card issued. I cannot imagine someone selling my home without involving me, or at the very least without several other of m…

The Solicitor has no existing relationship with the real owner of the house. A bloke turns up and says they want to sell their house and has the correct Land Registry details and some ID, the solicitor does other checks and makes it all happen. The illegal seller must have known that the owner was away for some time though because even if everything is ready, it usually takes at least 2 months to go through.

Vast majority of house sales involve at least one of

* an estate agent

* a mortgage company (on the purchase or the sale)

* involve a sale at a market rate

* involve parties that know each other personally (family etc).

To not have any of those surely should raise a warning flag that "this requires a little more investigation" than a forged driving license. This wasn't an abandoned house being sold after being empty for several years.

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

#249

Post by iso1631 »

whartung wrote: post #196
cletus wrote: post #120

Having gone through the purchase and sale of houses I'm honestly confused at how this happens. It involves a ton of paperwork, phone calls and in-person appointments, generally. If there is a mortgage on the property, the bank holds the title. The bank has a relationship with the owner. How did the bank sign off on the transfer of funds and title? They'd have to verify the identity of the seller. If there was no mort…

> Having gone through the purchase and sale of houses I'm honestly confused at how this happens. It involves a ton of paperwork, phone calls and in-person appointments, generally. It seems that this was sophisticated identity theft. If someone managed to get a DL with your name on it, but their picture, and your SSN, then it's pretty much carte blanche at that point. Go into a bank and say "I need to close my account…

It sucks that the bank has its money stolen in your scenario, but at least the person who the bank owes the money to (the real holder) doesn't lose anything.

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

#250

Post by jopsen »

jonny_eh wrote: post #243
torstenvl wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't about property and power, though. It's about knowledge and power. The buyer knows there's a transaction being contemplated. The buyer knows how to contact the seller and/or their agents. The owner does not. The predominant U.S. system requires buyers to guard against known unknowns. The U.K. system requires owners to guard against unknown unknowns. It's a least-cost-avoider problem, and it has a clear answer…

Also the buyer is either a scammer or a dupe. The owner is just a victim. Either way, the buyer should clearly be held responsible and cover all costs to resolve.

Or as alluded to in the article, it's a civil matter, maybe you can sue solicitors involved, or the Land Registry.
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