[aclelland]

Yeah, that part confused me to. I'm pretty sure that if I bought a stolen xbox from some guy on a street corner and the Police find me with it, they'd not throw up their hands and say "oh well, I guess you own it now, on your way".

I assume there is a specific legal quirk with property ownership.

[dtparr]

I believe the 'quirk' here is that the fraud was able to get property ownership updated with the Land Registry, so the new owner is the official owner of record.

[thereddaikon]

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

[ska]

> cant truly own land if the government can just

This is mostly how private property works in practice, everywhere.

[aqsalose]

In civilized countries, it requires a specific decree or order by some government body, possibly after appeals.

Not just random clerk writing a line in a book when random stranger comes and tells they own a piece of land and are going to sell it.

[blitzar]

> it requires a specific decree or order by some government body

That person is a random clerk

> possibly after appeals

I can 100% gaurantee that this case goes to court (if it is not settled to the now previous owners satisfaction).

I also suspect that the original owner will come out on top, by likely more than the 150k that their 'house' was worth.

[aqsalose]

Only thing I can think of is eminent domain. Here it using it requires either a specific decree by the national government (as in, the prime minister), zoning plan approved by the elected municipal government, or in some limited cases, apparently involving electric power lines, an agency. The owner is to be informed of the proceedings before they take effect.

The random clerk does not get to do write off your property belonging to someone else, unless your elected representative had a change voice an opinion in a proceedings where a clear public decision by the elected representatives to specifically take away someone's property was made.

[codyb]

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.

[H8crilA]

Possession is a physical/real property of the universe.

Ownership is a legal abstraction/construct.

[lazide]

Being allowed to possess something (instead of being drug off kicking and screaming by the cops) is also a societal/legal construct.

[necovek]

It is a societal/legal construct brough up from the historical experience (eg. if a caveman built himself a hammer, they possessed it as long as they took good care of it).

We've redefined what "taking good care of something" means for things you possess, and we made elaborate social/legal constructs to clearly define boundaries of possession.

But this is present even in the animal world, even when it comes to "property" (wolfs mark their territory, so do lions, bees go back to their own hives, etc).

[enord]

>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.

[mensetmanusman]

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.

[_jal]

> Sounds to me like in the UK you cant truly own land

Can you name a country that behaves differently?

[jopsen]

Yeah, you don't truly own land, you pay property taxes, etc.

It's more like you lease the land :)

[lazide]

Possession is 9/10ths of the law, and the gov’t likes to claim possession of all real property in it’s borders in some way or another

[dgb23]

So the Land Registry is at fault? Good luck...

[anonporridge]

Interesting side note. That's true for property, but not for cash.

Cash is legally considered fungible. So, if someone steals a bunch of cash and buys something from you with it, even though that specific cash technically belonged to someone else before theft, it can't be reclaimed even if they can prove it.

[jakeinspace]

I'm aware of this, but I do wonder what happens if, rather than using the stolen cash to purchase goods, the thief gave away the money? Either to friends, a random homeless person on the street, or to registered charities. Would that be still considered unreclaimable?

[anonporridge]

idk. Maybe buy a random thing from them for an absurd amount?

Or just make it rain on so many people that it's effectively impossible to get it all back. The power of decentralization.

[iammisc]

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.

[amerkhalid]

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.

[toss1]

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...

[jessriedel]

Knowingly receiving stolen property is a different thing.

[kybernetyk]

The quirk is that in the UK you’re not a free man but only a subject and in the end the crown owns everything and now fuck off, filthy peasant, before the king sends his men.

[BoxOfRain]

This is true in practice pretty much everywhere governments exist though, it's not really a monarchy versus republic thing. The stick is no less painful if it's called "society's stick" rather than "the King's stick" if the government of the day decide to beat you with it.

[thesuitonym]

Is this really different than any other country? Any government (at least in uncontested territories) can come in and tell you to fuck off, and there's really very little you can do about it.

[erikerikson]

Quite the opposite. You ask the state to use their monopoly on legitimate use of force to enforce your rights in accordance to law. What you imply is a failed state. The state must maintain the legitimacy of that use to maintain consent of the people, that or it slides into far less prosperous configurations.

[lazide]

Being in a far less prosperous (in a meta sense) configuration is surprisingly not as big a deterrent as one might expect, especially if you are making them angry or the official involved would get far more prosperous (in a direct, concrete way) along the way.

[necovek]

Kings and queens have been overthrown and replaced too, so I do not see any difference there either.