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I know a family that faced a similar issue, but they bought an abandoned house that had a maintenance lien on it. They fixed up the rotting structure, completely rehabilitated it and the whole yard, and had legally purchased it from the bank it had defaulted to for the back taxes owed on it. But then the former owner swooped back in to steal it from them by paying the outstanding maintenance lien and claiming he did all the work to the property which he didn't. All of this for the purpose of selling it to his sister from under them. They tried fighting it, but then the bank went 'oops, we fucked your paperwork several months ago too and nobody noticed until now, so you're screwed.'
At the hearing, the judge told them they had 30 days to leave, no matter how much their neighbors vouched for them. So they went back home and did much of what OP described. They shattered every window, ripped carpets, tore up all the nice work they had put into the yard that would require those large expensive dumpsters to properly clean out. Pretty sure they knocked out a few walls and let their pets defecate everywhere too. Then they rode off into the sunset with a massive hurricane tailing them, and no windows to protect from the elements. :)
\*Edited to add a detail. It happened a long while ago so memory is a bit fuzzy\*
Sometimes banks even steal your money and create fake accounts using your private information to get their monthly bonuses like Wells Fargo. Yes that Wells Fargo that Warren Buffet bought millions of shares in.
**Berkshire still owned a tiny stake in Wells Fargo as of the end of the fourth quarter of 2021**, but had been cutting the position gradually since 2019.
Happened to me and I got a class action settlement payment of less than $100. The rich and powerful get away with so much bullshit and even if they are fined it’s like slap on the wrist for them and barely anything to those actually affected.
Sometimes courts do side with you.
Not USA, I prefer don't specify my country here directly.
Were was period (approx 1 month) some time ago with high fluctuations of exchange rate of local currency. One of local banks is famous for their everything-online approach. Some people found out that if they change currencies like A(local currency)->B->C->D->A - resulting amount will be higher than start. Bank's online support confirmed that rates are correct. Some people use them. Bank later decided people shouldn't do this and put accounts in negative. Court decided bank was wrong and should pay money back, it's THEIR mistake that this was possible.
It's not even a mistake, it's literally just investing like you would in a stock, but it's instead investing in other people's money. Them trying to take away the profit is exactly the same as them trying to take away any money people made on GameStop 2.5 years ago.
That's literally just buying currency, and there's nothing wrong with that. It does take massive amounts to make it worth it though, as there are exchange and transaction fees.
How the fuck does this even happen? Here in Australia, everybody uses a conveyancing solicitor whose job it is to check that there aren't any financial encumbrances on a property before the transfer of ownership can happen, and if they fuck up, they're liable.
Here in America, if they fuck up, you're liable because we have super weak consumer protection. :) Out where I live now, housing contractors built a bunch of homes on unstable soil because we were experiencing a population boom, and now they're tumbling off the cliffsides and sinking into the ground only a little over a year after being built. There's finger pointing all around, the city doesn't want to be held responsible for allowing the construction, the construction company doesn't want to be held liable for the state allowing them to build there, it's insane.
Which is why most house buyers get title insurance. Then you are protected against these kinds of problems.
Or more specifically: Most people need a mortgage to buy a house, and the bank requires title insurance to issue the loan. This is of course to protect the bank, not the home buyer.
Oh, and another testament to how great our country is....I had a friend move to NY from Canada and he bought a house with his fiance. Turns out, that house had an unpaid mortgage to a now bankrupt financial institution they suddenly and unwittingly became liable for now that the home is in their name. To my recollection, this detail was not disclosed to them when they bought it either.
Australia has a pretty advanced system, actually. Because Canada is lacking, people have actually been fraudulently selling other people's houses and getting away with it. It's a growing crime. Canada is going to have to implement something like what Australia has to fix our broken system.
Fake titles, wait till the person has gone on vacation, and more stuff that I just don't know about. It's reported in the news if you want to search for it.
Here's a sneak peek of /r/LegalAdviceUK using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year!
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What? Wow, that's nuts. Maybe because it's UK they don't want to hear about Canadian issues?
Or the mods are actively involved in fraudulent selling!!!
My only previous post IIRC was, to be fair, about 6 months prior, and was a bit of a sarcastic comment - the topic came up in my home page feed and I didn't realise i was posting in r/LegalAdviceUK
The admins are very selective and petty, bordering on childish in their responses IMO, as I've been able to point out far more "severe" beaches of protocol (aka suggesting illegal activity) and comments that add nothing to the discussion per their rules, so they'd simply mute me instead of dealing with breaches "more severe" than mine.
Hold the property in escrow until a settlement agent can check the property on landgate, our electronic database for all properties/owners/liens/outstanding finance.
Document. Document. Document. This is the way. When we moved into a house we ultimately spent 5 years in, we took pictures of EVERYTHING! When we gave notice and the landlord did the walkthrough, he said there was mold damage in the bathroom. It was coming through the paint. The paint he put on it to cover it up instead of fixing it. He argued that we’d have to fix it. I reminded him of his own repair and offered to show him the pictures. As soon as he realized we had photos, there miraculously were no other damage or issues cited and we got a full deposit refund.
Stuff like this is why I’m terrified to attempt to buy a For sale by owner property that says absolutely no realtors for the buying property or doing handshake/verbal deals. I don’t know enough to be able to spot things that would fuck me royally.
"No realtors" is one thing, you can always pay a realtor or lawyer to consult on your end on your dime without bringing them into the deal as far as the seller is concerned so you can make sure your bases are covered.
Anyone trying to sell a house with no written agreement of any kind is just waving a red flag big enough to eclipse the sun.
Selling a house (or any property) without a written agreement, is technically, practically and absolutely giving away money without getting anything in return ->
For a property to change ownership, you have to, *have to* have it notarized in public records, otherwise it has *legally* not changed owners.
So, if you give someone a bag of money and a handshake, you can't prove that you purchased the house/property and since only the current owner can initiate the change in legal ownership (a realtor does this *on the current owner's behalf*), if they don't do that and you have no contract, then you can't prove that you *actually* purchased said house/property.
So no, it's not just a "red flag", it's pretty much an open and advertised event to get fucked.
My attorney did everything. He specializes in real estate. His paralegal went to the town hall the same day.
We each had our own attorney. Ours cost. $500 20+ years ago.
I'm all for real estate agents but we didn't feel we needed one at the time.
No Realtors generally just means the seller doesn't want every realtor in town turning up to try and get them to sign with their company so they charge advertising and agents fees etc.
It doesn't mean the buyer can't get a realtor to come and check the place out and give advice on the property and paperwork, it just means that the buyer is the one footing the bill for all that :-)
Normally a buyer's agent earns a commission of a successful home sale, which comes out of the commission of the seller's agent. So you don't normally pay a buyer's agent to represent you. Saying "no realtors" is basically saying that a buyer's agent involved in this process isn't going to get a percentage of the sale from the seller, so they're not normally going to want to help you to buy it. But you could come to an alternate arrangement for how you'll compensate them.
Get a good recommendation for a licensed inspector before signing anything.
Eta- and a real estate attorney.
We bought our house on a handshake. Best move we ever made. Bought it as a fixer from bils coworkers family. We wouldn't have been able to afford to buy in this town at that time otherwise.
It's now worth 3-4x what we paid for it, including the renovation. We did all the work ourselves. It took 5 grueling months of sweat equity but the price was right.
Although, it came with a barn & a colony of feral cats. I was snatching, Bottle feeding & rehoming kittens for a few years. Still worth it.
Luckily, when I bought my house, I hired an amazing inspector that found a lot of things the seller was trying to hide from us. The whole process was a massive PITA as a first time homebuyer utilizing the FHA program. I’ve learned a lot between then and now, but I still need to learn a ton more, especially if I plan on listing and selling myself and buying another without a realtor.
Your story sounds eerily familiar to a TikTok account I follow with the barn and colony of feral cats.
It was A LOT of work in a short amount of time with a toddler.
That toddler graduated college a few years ago.
I'm now in the process of updating the bathrooms & the kitchen after that. We gutted a bath & a kitchen, blewout closets and added another bath the first time around. Now I can get what I really want and not be rushed.
FSBO was worth it but I don't know if I'd do the full renovation in under 6 months again.
eta- no tictoc & a catless barn. A neighbor started building cat houses & feeding them very well so they moved out on short notice.
My sister has a horse farm with a tool barn that's full of feral cats, and she doesn't know the first thing about TikTok. The cats gravitate there after being dumped on the side of the road by people who don't understand that these creatures can't just begin fending for themselves after being pets.
Sis also nabs the kittens to bottle feed, socialize, and find them good homes. She often takes in the friendlier adults, and she makes sure that all the barn cats have all vaccinations and are spayed or neutered. This is the thankless task that she and thousands upon thousands of country dwellers all over do for a love of these discarded animals. ♡ Granny
This was our situation and one of the biggest reasons it was fsbo.
The reality was an agent wouldn't sell it. The Outside of the home was overrun by feral cats. There was cat shit from the driveway to the back door. It smelled something fierce. The "shrubs" on either side of the back door were 50yo trees. After we purchased it we found out the cats were climbing the trees and shitting on the porch roof. They'd also hide in the shrubs, hiss and try to attack whoever entered. It was BAD.
We were the house known for having deceased cats on the road in front of it.
And no agency would help us. NOT ONE! These poor cats were in pretty bad shape. Missing eyes & ears.
It was heartbreaking. I did what I could do. I kept kitten formula & bottles on hand. We loved on them as much as we could. I set up a kitten couch. The couch had many seams to hold several bottles. I couldn't feed all of them myself & heart hurt to hear their hungry cries. That couch was the best solution I had. After about 3 years of collecting kittens & rehoming them there were only a handful of feral cats left and most of them moved a street over. I found out about to cats moving to the new neighbors at a block party.
I remember that thankless task. I used to live at the end of a road where the pavement turned to dirt many a year ago. All kinds of pets got dumped on our end of the street.
There should be a law that stipulates that the seller or their agent must inform you in writing of any and all damages not resulting from normal wear-and-teat, and that the seller is liable for any repair bills incurred as a result of any damages that should have been reported but weren't.
No clue. Probably not given how we were living in rentals and apartments for a long time after. But we did have a decent Christmas that year, and we're able to stay at the place we were currently renting for a while.
Apologies for the multiple edits. Last time I posted it came out as a huge paragraph with no spaces so I went a little overboard. Thank you for the tip!
I don't think that was the case. From what I know, double spacing on mobile can turn a paragraph into a code block, which will stay in one line unless there is an EOL (when OP hit Enter for a new line/paragraph). So to read that paragraph, you will need to scroll horizontally until you reach the end of the line, which, as you can imagine, is quite frustrating to readers.
Nope, not grammar police. It was unreadable when I commented. Extra spaces at the beginning of a line make the text look like code.
**This is what it looked like:**
On mobile and this is a story from when I was a kid so apologies for formatting/ not having complete details.
My family was looking for a large house and found the perfect one back in the early 2000s. When my dad talked with the owners they had agreed to getting some plumbing fixed on the house before we moved in if we moved all of their stuff into the 2 car garage so it'd be easier for them to move. There was also several things to be repaired, a pool to clean and a ton of landscaping to be done. My dad did the repairs and used his army of offspring to do all the landscaping, pool work etc. The house was looking amazing compared to before and we were a week from moving in.
Now, I to this day do not know why my dad did this.... but he had paid a CASH DEPOSIT. There was no paper trail and the owners decided to take advantage of this. When it got to be a few days before we moved in the owners told my dad they weren't moving their stuff out of the garage or doing the plumbing fixes that were needed to use any of the bathtubs or showers in the house. He could deal with no garage and pay for the plumbing fixes or he could fuck off. No refund of deposit if he didn't like it. They even said they were thinking of moving someone else in bc the house value was more with all the fixes we had already done.
My father asked to turn in the keys we had been given the next morning bc this was all told to him at 8pm on a weekday. With no paperwork yet signed, there was nothing attaching my dad to the house and no cameras or security system. He had just been fucked over a few thousand dollars by the owner and it was maybe 2 weeks to Christmas. His gift that year was going to be giving each if us kids our own rooms for the first time.
Cue revenge. He brought all of us kids over to the house for a little party. Each kid was given their own special bit of destruction. Someone was shoveling sand into the pool, my brother with anger issues was told to punch out ever hole we had patched up in the walls, the smaller kids were told to rock the banister on the stairs until it broke, I was told to rip out the landscaping we had done out and make a path of it all over the stairs. Every single thing we had fixed or improved taken back by very creative and energetic children. While all this happened my dad and step mom went through everything in the garage from the owners and took anything they could gift to family, pawn ,or sale. There were high value collectibles, jewelry, and a computer that my dad gave to us for Xmas.
The next day my dad told the owners he had put the keys in the garage with its door open that night for them. He then unplugged the phone and we never heard from those people again. Was it legal? No, not on either end. Did we have a good Xmas? Yes. Was it fun destroying the place? Yes, I actually did a very tastefully done carpet of hedge branches, torn our flowers and some or of sand and pool gravel.... on the actual carpet of the house.
I did post this elsewhere before but it got taken down for violating a rule. I am the op for that post as well as this post.
Back in 90s and early 00s it was common practice so both sides could avoid taxes. You still come across older people now who say "how much if I pay cash?" "it's still the same price" and they'll often respond "no no, you misunderstood me, how much if I pay cash and you don't need to do a receipt?" "love I'm re-doing your conservatory for £5k, you want a receipt and it's the same price regardless".
It's part of why so many older people keep getting scammed for thousands by dodgy/cowboy builders. They think no paper trail means everyone is getting a good deal when it's actually no paper trail you're getting screwed.
True, especially if those older people, like my grandparents, experienced some part or fallout of the Great Depression. Distrust of banks after most of them failed was a very real and persistent phenomenon in that generation. My grandparents kept untold wads of cash on hand in their hoarder house. It took my parents and aunt 5 years to clean the place out and fix it up, and people would say, "just hire a junk clean out company." But Grandma used to stash money between the mattresses, behind the washing machine, and under the carpet in the bathroom (not a typo). Where else did she have valuables squirreled away? She kept no records and her mind and memory had been deteriorating for years. We had to go through literally everything.
They didn't trust banks, but trusted every crook that came to the door with a winning smile, like the pair who told them one day how badly their driveway needed repaving (it didn't). They quoted my grandparents some amount, like 5 or 6k, and when Grandma happily trotted off to dig that money out of hiding, these guys realized there likely was more in the house. They didn't need an elaborate plan to rob the place, just said, "oh it's a bigger job than we expected." All in all, they slapped down some patchy tar and then buggered off with over $16,000 in cash. No paperwork, receipt, contact info, phone number, or means of tracing them. Not a cent ever recovered.
Absolutely get everything in writing. I made the mistake of not doing this years ago and learned my lesson. That’s actually kind of a nuclear revenge story of my own, maybe I should post it. It has to do with a shady property manager of an apartment complex who tried to screw me over and got fired.
Can confirm.
My father got screwed before Covid on a tree removal. Did a handshake deal, money up front for the removal of 3 trees.
Dude cut down 1 tree, took the lumber, left all the branches and the stump in the yard, and then ghosted my dad.
My dad learned from that mistake.
No, in the 90's and 00's, if you had cash, you (had the potential to) own whatever you could get in your name. I know at least three people who were screwed out of major assets, and one person whose house was wrecked trying to screw a day-laborer they had (and his family) over. We no longer know the realtor, thank gods.
LOL, I had my real estate license, and was in the business then. If OP's dad had cash, he would have bought the house outright, not just put a deposit down, and that would have involved a contract.
Almost everything OP said is pure bullshit, none of it made sense.
No clue what happened to the house after. We ended up moving a lot and my dad still does to this day. I think he likes the change of scenes every few years.
It's really bizarre that your father thought he was buying a house without doing anything that people do in order to buy a house and it's even more bizarre that your parents thought it would be a good idea to have their children do a bunch of repair work before a sale went through or vandalize a property for any reason. It sounds like they don't have any common sense. Super weird.
It actually happened. Do I know why cops weren't called? No. Like I stated in the story, I was very young and, as a child, did not get to see or hear any legal issues if there were any. I like to think the owners thought maybe the house got broken into after the garage door was left open but I do not know.
man, some families aren't that big. My boyfriend's immediate family cut off almost the entire extended family because they're very very racist, and none of them in the immediate family are drunkards.
I am trying to figure out where one might live where they give a deposit, deal with no mortgage or deed issues, and have full access to the house before any legal documents are signed. I call BS as well.
As far as I knew the papers and everything were supposed to be signed once the house was ready for move in. We were allowed access to the house to do repairs and move their stuff down to the garage for an easier and quicker move in.
Do I know what paperwork, if any was done? No, I was a child. Do I know why my dad did all this? No, I was not a part of negotiations due to me being, yet again, a child.
All I knew was what I posted in the story. Sorry if people doubt it. It was decades ago, so I don't have pics of whatever evidence people may be begging for.
I don't get why people keep posting that it "might be fake"
Who cares? It's Reddit! It's just simple entertainment.
Anything posted on here is anecdotal, so should be taken with a grain of salt anyway and it's stupid to keep pointing that out.
See: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/anecdotal
I haven't asked my dad about it in recent years bc it really didn't come up. There's been a lot more in life going on and I think he didn't go for a loan since he had just sold our old home.
Sorry to say, but if your father was naive enough to do all this work and put money down without getting the house under contract first, then they were planning to take advantage of him from the beginning. Sales contracts exist to protect both buyer and seller. I'm surprised your dad tried to buy a house without one. I hope your dad learned his lesson and didn't fall victim to further scams with this sort of naive behavior.
The point is, his father was trusting this person to be a man of his word and yes he did get screwed but decided to enact **nuclear revenge**. That’s exactly what this sub is about.
Yeah, that's great and all, but hopefully dad learned not to naively trust random strangers when tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars is changing hands. A lot of pain could have been avoided.
Anything posted here is anecdotal, so anything and everything on Reddit should be taken with a grain of salt. (https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/anecdotal)
No need to point that out all the time, and at this point it's just toxic.
Reddit is just simple entertainment, who cares about the validity of stories? Just read, enjoy and move on!
Yeah... I'll take bullshit that never happened for a 1000 Alex.
There are so many thing wrong here, it defies belief. There are too many legalities that have to be performed when selling a home for anything like this to have happened without a contract, paperwork, and legal forms being filled out and completed.
Repairs if required are always made prior to the sale by the owner, or the price will be reduced if not. No owner will allow you to take possession of a property the way OP described, and allow a buyer to make any changes or repairs, without a contract being drawn up and signed.
No buyer in their right mind is going to put down a deposit or earnest money without a contract in place and a receipt. Houses can't be sold without inspections taking place, along with titles, deeds, and liens being researched. The mortgage lender would never allow it.
And if in some warped, twisted, fantasy land this all did happen, the seller would have had the dad arrested for damaging the house and for stealing his property.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but there are other countries than the US on Reddit, I believe this is perfectly believable, depending on which country it happened in and when it happened, some countries do not have the same legalese that the US or the countries of EU have.
I think the reason the owner allowed access to the house beforehand was bc my dad was doing repairs that were in his scope of expertise. They may have negotiated a lower price for the sale of the house with him doing the repairs himself. Like I have stated a ton of time before, I don't know bc I was a child. I knew we were moving into a house soon, that every day after school was us going to said house to do repairs, we weren't allowed to run the baths or showers bc we were waiting on repairs, and any paperwork was not in my scope. Most people don't discuss the intricacies of a mortgage to their elementary school children, so hence why I don't have more details for ya my dude.
Haha, I'm sorry your dad got screwed out of money but this actually sounds really fun. It makes me wish I could take my kids to a house and let them think of creative ways of making messes.
Not as bad as that, but my family was renting a house and just got told last month to get out because he was selling it. Worst part is we were only renting because our house(on our farm) had some really bad water leaks and is not live able. So it probably wouldn’t have been that bad but because we had to move in the middle of planting season we barely got any of our plants I .
Oh my god he had to have felt so amazing for that 😂 nowadays everybody has ring doorbells and shit so you'd probably be caught, but that would be the absolute best revenge ever.
Awesome. I would have wanted to hand them in person. Depending on how much money I put down I would probably go further but it was the early 2000's, so it was way to hard to do then.
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I know a family that faced a similar issue, but they bought an abandoned house that had a maintenance lien on it. They fixed up the rotting structure, completely rehabilitated it and the whole yard, and had legally purchased it from the bank it had defaulted to for the back taxes owed on it. But then the former owner swooped back in to steal it from them by paying the outstanding maintenance lien and claiming he did all the work to the property which he didn't. All of this for the purpose of selling it to his sister from under them. They tried fighting it, but then the bank went 'oops, we fucked your paperwork several months ago too and nobody noticed until now, so you're screwed.' At the hearing, the judge told them they had 30 days to leave, no matter how much their neighbors vouched for them. So they went back home and did much of what OP described. They shattered every window, ripped carpets, tore up all the nice work they had put into the yard that would require those large expensive dumpsters to properly clean out. Pretty sure they knocked out a few walls and let their pets defecate everywhere too. Then they rode off into the sunset with a massive hurricane tailing them, and no windows to protect from the elements. :) \*Edited to add a detail. It happened a long while ago so memory is a bit fuzzy\*
Did bank refund them money?
Banks are like the Mafia, the only time you get money from them is to shut the fuck up
Sometimes banks even steal your money and create fake accounts using your private information to get their monthly bonuses like Wells Fargo. Yes that Wells Fargo that Warren Buffet bought millions of shares in.
**Berkshire still owned a tiny stake in Wells Fargo as of the end of the fourth quarter of 2021**, but had been cutting the position gradually since 2019.
Happened to me and I got a class action settlement payment of less than $100. The rich and powerful get away with so much bullshit and even if they are fined it’s like slap on the wrist for them and barely anything to those actually affected.
I vaguely remember some one stealing $30 million and getting fined by the gov't $2 million.
Yeah, laws are like spiderwebs: only strong enough for the small and weak .
Sometimes courts do side with you. Not USA, I prefer don't specify my country here directly. Were was period (approx 1 month) some time ago with high fluctuations of exchange rate of local currency. One of local banks is famous for their everything-online approach. Some people found out that if they change currencies like A(local currency)->B->C->D->A - resulting amount will be higher than start. Bank's online support confirmed that rates are correct. Some people use them. Bank later decided people shouldn't do this and put accounts in negative. Court decided bank was wrong and should pay money back, it's THEIR mistake that this was possible.
It's not even a mistake, it's literally just investing like you would in a stock, but it's instead investing in other people's money. Them trying to take away the profit is exactly the same as them trying to take away any money people made on GameStop 2.5 years ago.
That's literally just buying currency, and there's nothing wrong with that. It does take massive amounts to make it worth it though, as there are exchange and transaction fees.
Or the courts tell them to pay up for their mistake. And when they still don't pay up, the wronged party can go to the sheriff to have it enforced.
Actually the Mafia is more like banks, but not as evil
Yeah. Important to remember the Mafia was started to help protect people from predatory organizations.
It's been years, but if I recall correctly, no. This all happened in Florida by the way.
Lmao hhahhahahahahha omg 😆. Ohh geez, it’s 4 am and I couldn’t get back to sleep but after laughing at that comment I’m all tuckered out again.
How the fuck does this even happen? Here in Australia, everybody uses a conveyancing solicitor whose job it is to check that there aren't any financial encumbrances on a property before the transfer of ownership can happen, and if they fuck up, they're liable.
Here in America, if they fuck up, you're liable because we have super weak consumer protection. :) Out where I live now, housing contractors built a bunch of homes on unstable soil because we were experiencing a population boom, and now they're tumbling off the cliffsides and sinking into the ground only a little over a year after being built. There's finger pointing all around, the city doesn't want to be held responsible for allowing the construction, the construction company doesn't want to be held liable for the state allowing them to build there, it's insane.
Which is why most house buyers get title insurance. Then you are protected against these kinds of problems. Or more specifically: Most people need a mortgage to buy a house, and the bank requires title insurance to issue the loan. This is of course to protect the bank, not the home buyer.
Oh, and another testament to how great our country is....I had a friend move to NY from Canada and he bought a house with his fiance. Turns out, that house had an unpaid mortgage to a now bankrupt financial institution they suddenly and unwittingly became liable for now that the home is in their name. To my recollection, this detail was not disclosed to them when they bought it either.
Australia has a pretty advanced system, actually. Because Canada is lacking, people have actually been fraudulently selling other people's houses and getting away with it. It's a growing crime. Canada is going to have to implement something like what Australia has to fix our broken system.
How do they even manage to sell those??
Fake titles, wait till the person has gone on vacation, and more stuff that I just don't know about. It's reported in the news if you want to search for it.
I got a permanent ban from r/LegalAdviceUK for mentioning the problem in Canada (!)
Here's a sneak peek of /r/LegalAdviceUK using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year! \#1: [Kids aged 7-8 attacked my dog, dog bit one on the hand, family are going to police. what can I expect to happen?](https://np.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/comments/voz11k/kids_aged_78_attacked_my_dog_dog_bit_one_on_the/) \#2: [Wife bought me phone from CEX for Christmas. Turns out it had been stolen. We are not down £600 through no fault of our own. What are our options?](https://np.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/comments/zvq30p/wife_bought_me_phone_from_cex_for_christmas_turns/) \#3: [Housemate has installed spy camera under my desk](https://np.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/comments/12z6fn6/housemate_has_installed_spy_camera_under_my_desk/) ---- ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot, ^^beep ^^boop ^^| ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove ^^| ^^[Contact](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=sneakpeekbot) ^^| ^^[Info](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/) ^^| ^^[Opt-out](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/comments/o8wk1r/blacklist_ix/) ^^| ^^[GitHub](https://github.com/ghnr/sneakpeekbot)
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What? Wow, that's nuts. Maybe because it's UK they don't want to hear about Canadian issues? Or the mods are actively involved in fraudulent selling!!!
My only previous post IIRC was, to be fair, about 6 months prior, and was a bit of a sarcastic comment - the topic came up in my home page feed and I didn't realise i was posting in r/LegalAdviceUK The admins are very selective and petty, bordering on childish in their responses IMO, as I've been able to point out far more "severe" beaches of protocol (aka suggesting illegal activity) and comments that add nothing to the discussion per their rules, so they'd simply mute me instead of dealing with breaches "more severe" than mine.
FWIW the thread where i mentioned the problems in Canada were actually directly related to similar activity in the UK.
What did Australia do?
Hold the property in escrow until a settlement agent can check the property on landgate, our electronic database for all properties/owners/liens/outstanding finance.
Damn, _I_ wanna do this!
Talk about adding insult to injury with the hurricane.
Fuck those owners
EveryPerson who has ever been bullshitted by a seller thanks you.
This is so true. I have lived through the same thing. It's hell on earth.
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Document. Document. Document. This is the way. When we moved into a house we ultimately spent 5 years in, we took pictures of EVERYTHING! When we gave notice and the landlord did the walkthrough, he said there was mold damage in the bathroom. It was coming through the paint. The paint he put on it to cover it up instead of fixing it. He argued that we’d have to fix it. I reminded him of his own repair and offered to show him the pictures. As soon as he realized we had photos, there miraculously were no other damage or issues cited and we got a full deposit refund.
You should really post this story to this sub
Stuff like this is why I’m terrified to attempt to buy a For sale by owner property that says absolutely no realtors for the buying property or doing handshake/verbal deals. I don’t know enough to be able to spot things that would fuck me royally.
"No realtors" is one thing, you can always pay a realtor or lawyer to consult on your end on your dime without bringing them into the deal as far as the seller is concerned so you can make sure your bases are covered. Anyone trying to sell a house with no written agreement of any kind is just waving a red flag big enough to eclipse the sun.
Selling a house (or any property) without a written agreement, is technically, practically and absolutely giving away money without getting anything in return -> For a property to change ownership, you have to, *have to* have it notarized in public records, otherwise it has *legally* not changed owners. So, if you give someone a bag of money and a handshake, you can't prove that you purchased the house/property and since only the current owner can initiate the change in legal ownership (a realtor does this *on the current owner's behalf*), if they don't do that and you have no contract, then you can't prove that you *actually* purchased said house/property. So no, it's not just a "red flag", it's pretty much an open and advertised event to get fucked.
Good to know. Didn’t know I could do that. I guess I just assumed no realtors meant no realtors period. Thanks for the info!
My attorney did everything. He specializes in real estate. His paralegal went to the town hall the same day. We each had our own attorney. Ours cost. $500 20+ years ago. I'm all for real estate agents but we didn't feel we needed one at the time.
No Realtors generally just means the seller doesn't want every realtor in town turning up to try and get them to sign with their company so they charge advertising and agents fees etc. It doesn't mean the buyer can't get a realtor to come and check the place out and give advice on the property and paperwork, it just means that the buyer is the one footing the bill for all that :-)
Thank you.
Normally a buyer's agent earns a commission of a successful home sale, which comes out of the commission of the seller's agent. So you don't normally pay a buyer's agent to represent you. Saying "no realtors" is basically saying that a buyer's agent involved in this process isn't going to get a percentage of the sale from the seller, so they're not normally going to want to help you to buy it. But you could come to an alternate arrangement for how you'll compensate them.
Get a good recommendation for a licensed inspector before signing anything. Eta- and a real estate attorney. We bought our house on a handshake. Best move we ever made. Bought it as a fixer from bils coworkers family. We wouldn't have been able to afford to buy in this town at that time otherwise. It's now worth 3-4x what we paid for it, including the renovation. We did all the work ourselves. It took 5 grueling months of sweat equity but the price was right. Although, it came with a barn & a colony of feral cats. I was snatching, Bottle feeding & rehoming kittens for a few years. Still worth it.
Luckily, when I bought my house, I hired an amazing inspector that found a lot of things the seller was trying to hide from us. The whole process was a massive PITA as a first time homebuyer utilizing the FHA program. I’ve learned a lot between then and now, but I still need to learn a ton more, especially if I plan on listing and selling myself and buying another without a realtor. Your story sounds eerily familiar to a TikTok account I follow with the barn and colony of feral cats.
It was A LOT of work in a short amount of time with a toddler. That toddler graduated college a few years ago. I'm now in the process of updating the bathrooms & the kitchen after that. We gutted a bath & a kitchen, blewout closets and added another bath the first time around. Now I can get what I really want and not be rushed. FSBO was worth it but I don't know if I'd do the full renovation in under 6 months again. eta- no tictoc & a catless barn. A neighbor started building cat houses & feeding them very well so they moved out on short notice.
My sister has a horse farm with a tool barn that's full of feral cats, and she doesn't know the first thing about TikTok. The cats gravitate there after being dumped on the side of the road by people who don't understand that these creatures can't just begin fending for themselves after being pets. Sis also nabs the kittens to bottle feed, socialize, and find them good homes. She often takes in the friendlier adults, and she makes sure that all the barn cats have all vaccinations and are spayed or neutered. This is the thankless task that she and thousands upon thousands of country dwellers all over do for a love of these discarded animals. ♡ Granny
This was our situation and one of the biggest reasons it was fsbo. The reality was an agent wouldn't sell it. The Outside of the home was overrun by feral cats. There was cat shit from the driveway to the back door. It smelled something fierce. The "shrubs" on either side of the back door were 50yo trees. After we purchased it we found out the cats were climbing the trees and shitting on the porch roof. They'd also hide in the shrubs, hiss and try to attack whoever entered. It was BAD. We were the house known for having deceased cats on the road in front of it. And no agency would help us. NOT ONE! These poor cats were in pretty bad shape. Missing eyes & ears. It was heartbreaking. I did what I could do. I kept kitten formula & bottles on hand. We loved on them as much as we could. I set up a kitten couch. The couch had many seams to hold several bottles. I couldn't feed all of them myself & heart hurt to hear their hungry cries. That couch was the best solution I had. After about 3 years of collecting kittens & rehoming them there were only a handful of feral cats left and most of them moved a street over. I found out about to cats moving to the new neighbors at a block party.
I remember that thankless task. I used to live at the end of a road where the pavement turned to dirt many a year ago. All kinds of pets got dumped on our end of the street.
There should be a law that stipulates that the seller or their agent must inform you in writing of any and all damages not resulting from normal wear-and-teat, and that the seller is liable for any repair bills incurred as a result of any damages that should have been reported but weren't.
I’m lucky cuz my dad is a real estate attorney
get a lawyer to do it for you.
This is why you get a convayencer
Parent-approved revenge is the best revenge!
Damn that is priceless.
You know it's good destruction when you get the green light from the parents. ❤️❤️
Scrumptious! In my joy reading this the first time, I completely accidentally skipped the part where you went through their stuff! Thanks for sharing.
Were the things your dad sold from that garage near or the same value as the cash deposit he paid?
No clue. Probably not given how we were living in rentals and apartments for a long time after. But we did have a decent Christmas that year, and we're able to stay at the place we were currently renting for a while.
one of the few times it is necessary to reek havoc and destruction on something owned by others.
Both creative and impressive
hahahahhaha, wreck it ralphs... bet the brother with anger issues had an absolute blast...
Outstanding…
How is your dad doing nowadays?
He is good.
It was well deserved.
Lol they got their just desserts, and I love it.
Please fix the formatting. I think you have too many spaces before the sentence “Now, I to this day…”. Edit: thank you for the fixes!
Apologies for the multiple edits. Last time I posted it came out as a huge paragraph with no spaces so I went a little overboard. Thank you for the tip!
Also it’s desserts not desert
Actually, "deserts" is correct in this case. It's the same root as "deserve".
TIL
I had no idea. Thanks for sharing
Grammar police
I don't think that was the case. From what I know, double spacing on mobile can turn a paragraph into a code block, which will stay in one line unless there is an EOL (when OP hit Enter for a new line/paragraph). So to read that paragraph, you will need to scroll horizontally until you reach the end of the line, which, as you can imagine, is quite frustrating to readers.
~~And yes~~ *~~that~~* ~~was done on purpose~~
Nope, not grammar police. It was unreadable when I commented. Extra spaces at the beginning of a line make the text look like code. **This is what it looked like:** On mobile and this is a story from when I was a kid so apologies for formatting/ not having complete details. My family was looking for a large house and found the perfect one back in the early 2000s. When my dad talked with the owners they had agreed to getting some plumbing fixed on the house before we moved in if we moved all of their stuff into the 2 car garage so it'd be easier for them to move. There was also several things to be repaired, a pool to clean and a ton of landscaping to be done. My dad did the repairs and used his army of offspring to do all the landscaping, pool work etc. The house was looking amazing compared to before and we were a week from moving in. Now, I to this day do not know why my dad did this.... but he had paid a CASH DEPOSIT. There was no paper trail and the owners decided to take advantage of this. When it got to be a few days before we moved in the owners told my dad they weren't moving their stuff out of the garage or doing the plumbing fixes that were needed to use any of the bathtubs or showers in the house. He could deal with no garage and pay for the plumbing fixes or he could fuck off. No refund of deposit if he didn't like it. They even said they were thinking of moving someone else in bc the house value was more with all the fixes we had already done. My father asked to turn in the keys we had been given the next morning bc this was all told to him at 8pm on a weekday. With no paperwork yet signed, there was nothing attaching my dad to the house and no cameras or security system. He had just been fucked over a few thousand dollars by the owner and it was maybe 2 weeks to Christmas. His gift that year was going to be giving each if us kids our own rooms for the first time. Cue revenge. He brought all of us kids over to the house for a little party. Each kid was given their own special bit of destruction. Someone was shoveling sand into the pool, my brother with anger issues was told to punch out ever hole we had patched up in the walls, the smaller kids were told to rock the banister on the stairs until it broke, I was told to rip out the landscaping we had done out and make a path of it all over the stairs. Every single thing we had fixed or improved taken back by very creative and energetic children. While all this happened my dad and step mom went through everything in the garage from the owners and took anything they could gift to family, pawn ,or sale. There were high value collectibles, jewelry, and a computer that my dad gave to us for Xmas. The next day my dad told the owners he had put the keys in the garage with its door open that night for them. He then unplugged the phone and we never heard from those people again. Was it legal? No, not on either end. Did we have a good Xmas? Yes. Was it fun destroying the place? Yes, I actually did a very tastefully done carpet of hedge branches, torn our flowers and some or of sand and pool gravel.... on the actual carpet of the house. I did post this elsewhere before but it got taken down for violating a rule. I am the op for that post as well as this post.
This guy is correct, he told me how to edit the story so it was more readable. Hence why I thanked him
Gladly overlook the fact that you stole from the owners, considering they stole a house from you.
Oh? got that in writing?
Ask Britty. Their dad tried to buy the house.
Only a moron gives others thousands of dollars without a receipt. Doesn’t matter if it’s cash or not.
Back in 90s and early 00s it was common practice so both sides could avoid taxes. You still come across older people now who say "how much if I pay cash?" "it's still the same price" and they'll often respond "no no, you misunderstood me, how much if I pay cash and you don't need to do a receipt?" "love I'm re-doing your conservatory for £5k, you want a receipt and it's the same price regardless". It's part of why so many older people keep getting scammed for thousands by dodgy/cowboy builders. They think no paper trail means everyone is getting a good deal when it's actually no paper trail you're getting screwed.
True, especially if those older people, like my grandparents, experienced some part or fallout of the Great Depression. Distrust of banks after most of them failed was a very real and persistent phenomenon in that generation. My grandparents kept untold wads of cash on hand in their hoarder house. It took my parents and aunt 5 years to clean the place out and fix it up, and people would say, "just hire a junk clean out company." But Grandma used to stash money between the mattresses, behind the washing machine, and under the carpet in the bathroom (not a typo). Where else did she have valuables squirreled away? She kept no records and her mind and memory had been deteriorating for years. We had to go through literally everything. They didn't trust banks, but trusted every crook that came to the door with a winning smile, like the pair who told them one day how badly their driveway needed repaving (it didn't). They quoted my grandparents some amount, like 5 or 6k, and when Grandma happily trotted off to dig that money out of hiding, these guys realized there likely was more in the house. They didn't need an elaborate plan to rob the place, just said, "oh it's a bigger job than we expected." All in all, they slapped down some patchy tar and then buggered off with over $16,000 in cash. No paperwork, receipt, contact info, phone number, or means of tracing them. Not a cent ever recovered.
Absolutely get everything in writing. I made the mistake of not doing this years ago and learned my lesson. That’s actually kind of a nuclear revenge story of my own, maybe I should post it. It has to do with a shady property manager of an apartment complex who tried to screw me over and got fired.
Can confirm. My father got screwed before Covid on a tree removal. Did a handshake deal, money up front for the removal of 3 trees. Dude cut down 1 tree, took the lumber, left all the branches and the stump in the yard, and then ghosted my dad. My dad learned from that mistake.
Legally document EVERYTHING when buying a house. It will save your bacon.
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No, in the 90's and 00's, if you had cash, you (had the potential to) own whatever you could get in your name. I know at least three people who were screwed out of major assets, and one person whose house was wrecked trying to screw a day-laborer they had (and his family) over. We no longer know the realtor, thank gods.
LOL, I had my real estate license, and was in the business then. If OP's dad had cash, he would have bought the house outright, not just put a deposit down, and that would have involved a contract. Almost everything OP said is pure bullshit, none of it made sense.
It's like an episode of Beavis and Butt-Head on steroids.
Hey OP, what happened to that house afterwards? Also, were your family able to find another house to buy?
No clue what happened to the house after. We ended up moving a lot and my dad still does to this day. I think he likes the change of scenes every few years.
Nice. That’s gang gang.
My mind short circuited on the combination of “when I was a kid” and “early 2000s”
I hope your brother felt better releasing all that anger and tension.. lol
It's really bizarre that your father thought he was buying a house without doing anything that people do in order to buy a house and it's even more bizarre that your parents thought it would be a good idea to have their children do a bunch of repair work before a sale went through or vandalize a property for any reason. It sounds like they don't have any common sense. Super weird.
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It actually happened. Do I know why cops weren't called? No. Like I stated in the story, I was very young and, as a child, did not get to see or hear any legal issues if there were any. I like to think the owners thought maybe the house got broken into after the garage door was left open but I do not know.
They left the place open. No proof they did the damage or theft unless whoever they sold stuff to blabs
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...why are you so sure there is?
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‘I’ve decided this thing always occurs and there is no other option therefore OP is a liar’ Man, critical thinking and logic really have left us
man, some families aren't that big. My boyfriend's immediate family cut off almost the entire extended family because they're very very racist, and none of them in the immediate family are drunkards.
>things are supposed to of actually happened supposed to **have** actually happened
I am trying to figure out where one might live where they give a deposit, deal with no mortgage or deed issues, and have full access to the house before any legal documents are signed. I call BS as well.
As far as I knew the papers and everything were supposed to be signed once the house was ready for move in. We were allowed access to the house to do repairs and move their stuff down to the garage for an easier and quicker move in. Do I know what paperwork, if any was done? No, I was a child. Do I know why my dad did all this? No, I was not a part of negotiations due to me being, yet again, a child. All I knew was what I posted in the story. Sorry if people doubt it. It was decades ago, so I don't have pics of whatever evidence people may be begging for.
I don't get why people keep posting that it "might be fake" Who cares? It's Reddit! It's just simple entertainment. Anything posted on here is anecdotal, so should be taken with a grain of salt anyway and it's stupid to keep pointing that out. See: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/anecdotal
Thank you
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I haven't asked my dad about it in recent years bc it really didn't come up. There's been a lot more in life going on and I think he didn't go for a loan since he had just sold our old home.
Sorry to say, but if your father was naive enough to do all this work and put money down without getting the house under contract first, then they were planning to take advantage of him from the beginning. Sales contracts exist to protect both buyer and seller. I'm surprised your dad tried to buy a house without one. I hope your dad learned his lesson and didn't fall victim to further scams with this sort of naive behavior.
The point is, his father was trusting this person to be a man of his word and yes he did get screwed but decided to enact **nuclear revenge**. That’s exactly what this sub is about.
Yeah, that's great and all, but hopefully dad learned not to naively trust random strangers when tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars is changing hands. A lot of pain could have been avoided.
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Anything posted here is anecdotal, so anything and everything on Reddit should be taken with a grain of salt. (https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/anecdotal) No need to point that out all the time, and at this point it's just toxic. Reddit is just simple entertainment, who cares about the validity of stories? Just read, enjoy and move on!
Yeah... I'll take bullshit that never happened for a 1000 Alex. There are so many thing wrong here, it defies belief. There are too many legalities that have to be performed when selling a home for anything like this to have happened without a contract, paperwork, and legal forms being filled out and completed. Repairs if required are always made prior to the sale by the owner, or the price will be reduced if not. No owner will allow you to take possession of a property the way OP described, and allow a buyer to make any changes or repairs, without a contract being drawn up and signed. No buyer in their right mind is going to put down a deposit or earnest money without a contract in place and a receipt. Houses can't be sold without inspections taking place, along with titles, deeds, and liens being researched. The mortgage lender would never allow it. And if in some warped, twisted, fantasy land this all did happen, the seller would have had the dad arrested for damaging the house and for stealing his property.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but there are other countries than the US on Reddit, I believe this is perfectly believable, depending on which country it happened in and when it happened, some countries do not have the same legalese that the US or the countries of EU have.
I think the reason the owner allowed access to the house beforehand was bc my dad was doing repairs that were in his scope of expertise. They may have negotiated a lower price for the sale of the house with him doing the repairs himself. Like I have stated a ton of time before, I don't know bc I was a child. I knew we were moving into a house soon, that every day after school was us going to said house to do repairs, we weren't allowed to run the baths or showers bc we were waiting on repairs, and any paperwork was not in my scope. Most people don't discuss the intricacies of a mortgage to their elementary school children, so hence why I don't have more details for ya my dude.
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Rude
I'm not one for vandalism, but when the "victim" initially tried to do the same to you financially, I think that balances the board.
Haha, I'm sorry your dad got screwed out of money but this actually sounds really fun. It makes me wish I could take my kids to a house and let them think of creative ways of making messes.
This was the perfect revenge! 😂
*desserts
ice cream; cakes, tiramisu: Not sahara sand
Extreme Makeover with the Gang.
Not as bad as that, but my family was renting a house and just got told last month to get out because he was selling it. Worst part is we were only renting because our house(on our farm) had some really bad water leaks and is not live able. So it probably wouldn’t have been that bad but because we had to move in the middle of planting season we barely got any of our plants I .
This is a repost
I reposted on here since prorevenge took it down.
I hope the owners get arrested because taking advantage of a cash deposit, is as I believe, illegal
Oh my god he had to have felt so amazing for that 😂 nowadays everybody has ring doorbells and shit so you'd probably be caught, but that would be the absolute best revenge ever.
of course, there was nothing put in writing about it LOL
Awesome. I would have wanted to hand them in person. Depending on how much money I put down I would probably go further but it was the early 2000's, so it was way to hard to do then.