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Comment by bjarneh | Hacker News Reader

> companies escaped seizure through insolvency

This is a strange arrangement that I guess most countries follow. Companies are legal entities, that can be sued and so on. But a company cannot go to jail (board members or stock owners don't typically go to jail either). These legal entities can also seize to exist (like in this example), and then there is nobody left to be held accountable... It seems like most countries treat companies better than humans.

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Big difference between board members and stockholders. Board members are liable to some extent stockholders almost never are, unless the business was specifically founded to facilitate crime. That's where the term Ultimate Beneficiary comes into play.

> Big difference between board members and stockholders.

Completely agree, but in small/medium size companies (no public stock etc), these are often the same people. In many cases it's completely obvious who (which humans) that have done something wrong, but since we still accept that the legal entity under which they operated no longer exists; you're stuck.

A problem where I live (Norway) has been that people register companies to build apartment buildings, then immediately dissolve the company once the apartments are sold. The people who buy those flats better pray that there is nothing wrong with them, as there is basically nowhere to turn if there is.

In such cases, where it is totally clear that the people in charge of that business acted in bad faith I'm all for going after them in person. A good building company either insures against such risks or they create a warranty fund. An even worse example would be a builder going bankrupt during the building. This is one of the reasons I've never bought a new house, it either exists and you can sell it to me or you can try to sell it to someone else first but I'm not going to assume that kind of risk.

> acted in bad faith I'm all for going after them in person

I agree, but this should be standard procedure. Hiding behind these peculiar "legal entities" that cannot possibly be held accountable anyway, makes no sense.

> This is one of the reasons I've never bought a new house

Same here, although the house I did buy was 160 years old; which also comes with its own set of problems :-)

> although the house I did buy was 160 years old; which also comes with its own set of problems

Hehe, been there done that. In fact, doing that, right now I'm fixing a window frame that had 'a small spot of rot', by the time it was done half the frame had been removed, incredible how bad wood can be under nicely looking paint. Insect paradise underneath there.

> 'a small spot of rot'

is similar to "a small spot of rust" I guess, there is no such thing :-)

Fascinating to see how these old tree constructions are made. I still find it hard to comprehend that a few bricks and some timber logs are all that separates me from living directly on the dirt like a cave man..

That's one of my dreams still, to build a post-and-beam house from scratch. But I'm getting older and it may well be that such ambitious projects are now out of reach for me.

> to build a post-and-beam house from scratch

Sound like fun, and you shouldn't let age stop you from doing that. Instead you should adjust your dream to building a smaller post-and-beam house. It's not back breaking work if it's a small house; our inner cave men wants to work with timber for some reason.

> The people who buy those flats better pray that there is nothing wrong with them, as there is basically nowhere to turn if there is

This is also the case if you buy from a human.

That's not strictly speaking true. If the human was aware of what was wrong with it prior to the sale and did not inform you then you can typically file a claim against them in court ('hidden defect'). You still have to prove that you did what a normal buyer would do in terms of research but malice on the part of the seller is something that is actionable.

> This is also the case if you buy from a human.

This used to be the case here in Norway until 2021 as well, but now it's illegal to slap the old "sold-as-it-is" clause at the end of the contract.

You can still sell horrible stuff of course, but you have to say that it's horrible, in the listing :-)

Here in the UK, most new builds come with 10 years of buildings insurance. That's good, because I've heard horror stories about the quality of new builds.

I imagine the insurance premiums are quite high, to guard against such 'fly by night' operations.

Most countries also stop criminal & civil proceedings if the human in question ceases to exist

Yes, but creating a company does not require 18 years compared to raising adult human. So this can be throw away entities.

But ceasing to exist and dying are similar yet also different concepts.

A company can cease to exist on a whim, yet be reborn the next minute under a different name, with the same "genes", the same "information", because the actual living, breathing people behind it, just move on.

They don't though? They'd follow through if person a profited from fraud,then died and inherited that money to a third person.

With companies it just ends there and then

> ceases to exist

Exactly, you cannot just change name and buy a mustache like these companies basically can.

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