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Criminals Steal House Thanks To Hacked Email
mask.of.sanity writes with this quote from ZDNet:
"An international cybercrime investigation is underway into a sophisticated scam network that used email and fax to sell an Australian man's AU$500,000 property without his knowledge. The man was overseas when the Nigerian-based scammers stole his credentials and amazingly sold two houses through his real estate agent. He rushed home and prevented the sale of his second home from being finalized. Australian Federal Police and overseas law enforcement agencies will investigate the complex scam, which is considered the first of its kind in Australia. It is alleged scammers had stolen the man's email account and personal property documents to sell the houses and funnel cash into Chinese bank accounts. Investigating agencies admit the scammers hoodwinked both the selling agents and the government, and said they had enough information to satisfy regulatory requirements. The police did not rule out if the scammers had links to the man."
Because it's insanely complex and stealthy?
The fact that property of this value can be transferred without the owner's knowledge and he has to go to the australian government in the hopes of recovering full value for the home is shameful. You would think that a court of law would need to be consulted and signatures would have to be issued and compared, at least through the mail.
Here in the US criminals stole not the House, but the whole Executive Branch thanks to hacked voting machines! (allegedly)
Wait, so he still has the original Title Deed? Then the house was never properly sold and the Title Insurance company should be stuck with the bill. Under what system can a fake title, after being identified as a fake, survive? That completely defeats the purpose of a Title and Title Insurance. Responsibility for verifying the authenticity of a transaction must always lie with the actual parties to the transaction, not uninvolved third parties, even when one of the parties to the transaction purports to be the third party. To do otherwise creates perverse insensitives for the only parties capable of identifying fraud, the uninvolved third part can't identify it, before the fact, on account of never having the opportunity.
Realities just a bunch of bits.
If I was the buyer in the US and had this happen to me, the first place I would go would be to my title insurance company. Not sure it would work, but after the police, that is were I would go.
I had the understanding that the property concidered stolen property and must be returned to the orginal owner. However, I have seen articles of similar thefts happening in the US where the buyer kept the property, But these were news accounts and you know how reliable they can be.
The owner can't protect himself against fraudulent sales because he doesn't know a transaction is taking place. The buyer, on the other hand, knows that a transaction is taking place and that there is a certain risk that it's fraudulent. The buyer has all the power and information necessary to make sure it's not a fraudulent transaction and to insure against it. That's why the buyer should lose the house and it should go back to its original owner. The buyer should have title insurance (either privately purchased or through the state).
If you don't place the responsibility on the buyer, no party who knows about the transaction has any interest in preventing fraud: the real estate agent gets his cut, the buyer gets a cheap house, and the con men get their money. In that situation, they can all ignore signs of fraud to the maximum degree that they can plausibly get away with.