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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."
>>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.
Theoretically that is what notaries and escrow is all about. Whatever notary signed off on this should lose their license. If it wasn't notarized, then the escrow company for approving a sale without notarized documents. I'm also kind of surprised the real estate agent never tried to call the guy, even if he was overseas.
AFAIK under Australian Law, the people who bought the first house get to keep it. Assuming they are just innocent and genuine buyers. There is a government fund that is used to compensate the victim of the theft in these sort of cases, though the value will be independently assessed and the owner paid on the basis of that assessment, not what the current owners paid the scammers.
There is far more to it than email, "It is alleged scammers had stolen Mildenhall's email account and personal and property documents". There had to direct proximate contact, they obtained personal and property documents. The email angle seems to be more of a beat up by ZDnet rather than being of any real significance.
Investor generally keep property titles in a private safe or a bank safety deposit box but, he didn't notice them gone.
Hmm, strange had investments house and his agent was not renting them and the owner didn't notice the missing rent income if the agent was renting them. The whole thing stinks, from the owner, to the agent and beyond. It will be interesting to see how the case pans out over the next few months.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Here in the US criminals stole not the House, but the whole Executive Branch thanks to hacked voting machines! (allegedly)
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.
Actually, in the US the unknowing buyers would be compensated by their title insurance company and the seller would get his house back. This is exactly why we have title insurance on real estate transactions.