Under the circumstances, his profit is 100%.
Who said crime doesn’t pay? Squatters are a plague, both in the UK and here, and their crimes need to be punished in criminal courts, not civil courts.
If taxes were paid by the true homeowner, the court (judge who gave the title) away have no business in determining ownership, IMO.
Its not “quirky” and there is a reason for it. Yes, I didn’t like Adverse Possession either when I first learned about it in my first year of law school. The purpose of it however is to put land to maximum economic productive use. If you have an owner who is absent, who just goes away and leaves a property to fall into rack and ruin, it is better that somebody put that property to productive use.
The actual owner can come back and evict the squatter for many years - the common law says 10 years. This is governed by statute in most US states and its rare to be less than 7 years. Also, in many states, the squatter has to be paying the annual property tax on the property for that time. IF the owner does not come back and evict the squatter after that time though.....tough. The squatter can then legally claim it. The squatter is the one who was paying the taxes and upkeep and making it productive rather than just wasting it all that time.
The moral of the story.....don’t sit on your rights. If you don’t exercise them, you could lose them.
You do not ever ‘own’ real estate.
You simply rent it from the government...............
Very odd - did he not check on the property during any of that time?
My mother’s house sat empty for a year after she died - we checked on it once a week - and had a Ring Camera set up so we knew who was on the property at any given time.
Over time, he, along with other property owners, had to hire private security to keep squatters from taking over their properties.
A few years ago, he discovered that the government had taken over the property and sold it off to some crony, while at the same time my BIL continued to pay taxes on it.......
Let me tell you about squatters. I had a rental home (I could not sell it after moving to a new state for a job), so I stopped paying the mortgage and the property was foreclosed and sold at auction. Nobody lost money, and the police would not help because the squatters were the subject of an active investigation. So title passed to a new owner and I am no longer the owner of the property.
And the ending it perhaps the worst of it: "He sold the home to Atiq Hayat, 35, for £540,000." 'Nuff said.
10 years? Sounds like no one cared that the squatter took up residence.
you’d think those laws would be revisited, and you’d be wrong...
10yrs is a long time. I guess Colin Curtis didn’t need the money or he would have sold it.
The house, however, belonged to retiree Colin Curtis, who lived on the property with his mother until the late 1990s, when he moved out. Curtis inherited the property, but under what has been described as a "quirky" ancient Roman law that allows "someone in possession of a good without title to become the lawful proprietor if the original owner didn't show up after some time,"The judge ruled that previous laws approached squatting issues as civil matters, and despite the judge finding Curtis committed criminal trespass, he was granted ownership of the home. The judge found that at least 10 years had passed "without effective action by the owner" to take control of the property.
Then I noticed this:
The home was worth roughly £400,000 when Best took over the property. He sold the home to Atiq Hayat, 35, for £540,000 - the equivalent of roughly $682,000 - meaning he made a profit of roughly £140,000, or $177,000, the Daily Mail found.If Best got the house without paying for it his profit was the full £540,000 ($682,000).
The author and editor need to be fired.
No big deal!
The U.S. is being taken over by MIV (Migrant Invader Vermin) squatters and no one is raising a finger to stop it...
Based on an ancient Roman law? Are they going to start crucifying Christians in England now?
“What have the Romans ever done for us?”
Imported violent Muslims own the UK now.