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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'

#191

Post by yupper32 »

irrational wrote: post #141
yupper32 wrote: post #67

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. Surely you left a massive amount of money on the table then, right?

In what way? We sat down and decided how much we wanted for our house and told the potential buyers how much. They thought about it for a day and then told us they would give us that much money for the house. Maybe we could have made more on the open market, but we were happy and they were happy.

> Maybe we could have made more on the open market, but we were happy and they were happy.

That's my point. You could potentially have made a lot more money on the open market. Especially if the buyers didn't even try to negotiate. That usually means they would pay more (let alone what other buyers might pay).

The value of your house is what people are willing to pay for it, not what you think it's worth or what you want for it.

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

#192

Post by martyvis »

spzb wrote: post #26
cameronh90 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>no idea why, are single people not allowed mortgages?

The bank needs to know the status of the relationship because in the terrible event of it breaking up, your partner would have equity in the asset.

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

#193

Post by inglor_cz »

martyvis wrote: post #187
wongarsu wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But surely the land registry has an existing relationship with the real owner of the land? Isn't that the entire point of the land registry, to be able to contact and deal with the person who owns a particular piece of land?

I purchased my property in 1989. Any contact detail for me in the land registry in NSW Australia would be the house where I lived and the phone number there. Neither would be valid and lead them to me specifically. I certainly have never had further contact with them or they with me. So if someone presents themselves as me with a government issued driver's licence at the property address they would be none the wiser.…

The land registry could theoretically ask the tax office for current valid contact details, because the tax office is likely to be in closer contact with you...

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

#195

Post by koonsolo »

lbriner wrote: post #34
sofixa wrote: post #19

Earlier 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.

It is the same with a Solicitor but if they followed the correct process and the problem was actually with, say, the DVLA who issued a driving licence in the wrong name, I'm not sure who is liable for the error.

Why would you use a driver's license when everyone can have a digital ID card?

In Belgium the notary will always ask for your digital ID card.

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

#196

Post by whartung »

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 accounts". "What are the account numbers?" "Oh, golly, I forget -- here's my DL, my BDay is XX-YY-ZZZZ and my Social is 123-45-6789. I recently moved from 1234 Main St. to 4567 First Ave." "Of course sir, one moment." Next thing you know you're walking out with a check.

And..that's it, it all comes from that. Buy a house, sell a house, request some documentation. Especially, since they're SELLING the house, they don't have to go through the rigors of a background check for the loan. The BUYERS are placed under a microscope. The sellers? "So, you got the key?" "Yea." "We're good, sign here."

And it's noone's fault except the original perpetrator. Everyone else did "due diligence". If the questions were answered properly, showed appropriate ID, what more can they do?

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

#197

Post by koonsolo »

anonporridge wrote: post #151
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.

Banks offer very little protection for scams like this. Basically "the money seems to be gone".

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

#198

Post by meltedcapacitor »

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…

The fraudster probably picked a property with both an absentee owner and no mortgage for that reason.

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

#199

Post by wins32767 »

rectang wrote: post #162
kelnos wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wa…

The problem is the absurdly unjust system that needs monitoring. It's not "just the way the world works", because it doesn't have to be the way that it is, and it should not be the way that it is. A system that requires constant, complicated intervention to function properly ensures that those with the resources and background to know that they have to exercise constant vigilance against malfeasance will come out ahe…

In general that's true, but in this particular case I'm not sure it follows. This is a very infrequent occurrence, which is why it made the news. From a societal perspective, further investment in security here is probably a net drag since all those security measures will also apply to every valid sale and there are vastly more of those. The pot of money that pays out to victims of fraud doesn't make those people whole, but it's enough to solve the problem well enough that it's probably reasonably close to a global minimum in terms of total cost across everyone in society. For those that are concerned about the personal risk, being able to do your own monitoring is a nice enhancement.

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

#200

Post by mensetmanusman »

codyb wrote: post #132
thereddaikon wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds to me like in the UK you cant truly own land if the government can just decide it belongs to someone else.

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.

Interesting point,

I wonder if we will ever have a future where cryogenic freezing works and allows people to own land after they are temporarily dead.

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