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Comment by Causality1 | Hacker News Reader

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.

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I think it’s more ‘if someone goes through an expensive and extensive legal process to purchase at great expense, some real property, starts taking it as their own in good faith, then later what may be the prior legal owner, but who was not who did all the legal paperwork comes back to me and claims fraud - do I have to move?’

The issue is there are scenarios where the person writing the article may not actually be the legit owner - maybe they are delusional, or were squatting, or whatever. Maybe they are in league with the person who took off with the money, etc.

And the person who bought it is out real money on the meantime and is trying to make a home in good faith - it’s a pretty bad situation all around.

I think it's simpler than that, if the claims from the article are true (you still need courts to decide that, and I don't know of a court system where this is suitably fast).

Original proprietor had a furnished house, and the end result should be that they still have the house at no expense and at least trouble: they did not partake in the "sale", so they shouldn't suffer consequences from someone's incompetence or negligence. House is not just a "financial" instrument: it might have large emotional value too (memories, tradition & history, community and neighbourhood...).

Unfortunately, the honest buyer hired a solicitor to act as their agent, and while the solicitor might lose their professional license, buyer should get their damages back from the said solicitor or licensing body, because buyer is a victim of their incompetence/negligence, yet competence and care were guaranteed with the professional license.

Solicitor relies on the Land Registry to be the ultimate arbiter, so they should expect their damages to come from them for the duties they failed to perform.

Regardless of what the law is anywhere, that's how it should work IMHO. Unfortunately, the practicalities of how long it takes courts to (dis)prove a fraud make some of these hard to effectively achieve in a timely manner.

Theoretically, courts could make the process more expedient in cases of inhabiting-properties by "pausing" the transfer and putting the property into government custody, giving temporary use rights to the more likely resulting owner from the preliminary hearing (hey, fake document was involved, sorry, original owner gets to live there for the time being: everyone, please keep all receipts for any work done on the property and about your legal representation so you can be fairly compensated).

There are many European countries where this is the case for movable property. For instance, there was the case of the Fiat factory worker who bought a painting in a railway lost property auction, which turned out to be a stolen Gauguin.

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.

If you're implying what I think you're implying it would probably end with you in prison.

Losing the singular most expensive item you own, that typically contains the rest of your property, with no warning… that tends to end with you on the street which some may feel worse than prison.

I’m not condoning that choice but recognize the consequences are particularly low when you’re already at the bottom.

mate.. it's a matter of perspective. for people that have nothing left... prison doesn't sound that bad. If I have to choose between ending up on the streets again or prison... I'm pretty sure I'd chose prison this time around. I was young and lucky the first time. Now...

Part of his point is that's not really much of a deterrent if you've already lost everything.

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