£4000 found when ripping out kitchen

[ElizabethDarcy88]

Today after having old kitchen ripped out our fitter found hidden a box and inside was £4000 in cash. ...we have informed solicitor who managed the sale. (It was a probate house sale) what do you think will happen?

I still kick myself when I remember lunching with my son and then remembered that the lunch place didn't take cards after we were at the table. He sat and had a drink while I nipped to Halifax and withdrew £50. I put it in my coat pocket but when I got back to my son, it wasn't there. Stupid me had on a waterproof jacket which had two sorts of pockets, ones that went through to whatever you were wearing underneath and the normal sort. My money had just gone right through to the pavement. Someone outside Halifax in Guildford got lucky.

That's what I thought reading this. I would have used it to pay bills to live not handed it over to lawyers.

I would have done some detective work myself and tried to find the children of the last owner

however post solicitor fees? Not going to be much left I fear

@woody87 finders theft…is theft! Irrespective of it being your house.
the law states you need to make reasonable effort to return things to their rightful owner.
contacting the solicitor is both legally and morally the correct thing to do.
if the rightful owner or their next of kin can not be found with ‘reasonable effort’ then you’re allowed to keep the items.

let’s hope people treat you the way you want to treat others….

Just going to put this out there

If it was in the house when the house was sold, and not taken with the contents then does it belong to the house owners.
Kind of like the light bulbs. Can the previous owner come back after x years and say I want my light bulbs back?

There is an argument for knowledge of leaving the items behind, but if it was probate then the owners of the cash aren't around now anyway?

*just idly thinking

You did the right thing OP. And your fitter is clearly a decent, honest chap too.
Whether or not the money comes back to you, you can sleep easy.

Totally different scenario but years ago a friend found a wallet with cash and cards in it.

It was before mobile phones and the wallet had the owners details in it.

My friend phoned the owner with every intention of sending it back. The owner was really quite rude, told him to post the wallet back and didn't say thank you.

Because of the rudeness, my friend kept the cash (it wasn't a huge amount), cut up the cards and posted the empty wallet back!

A previous poster has shared a link, quite early on the thread, clearly showing the legality around this situation. It is NOTHING like leaving the lightbulbs behind! It is illegal to keep it. Plain and simple.

regarding the person who suggested this could be the same as discovering the house is worth more than you paid for it - no, no it isn’t. A legally binding contract for the sale of that house for that amount of money occurred. As long as consideration happened, it is irrelevant whether or not it was market value. Even if the OP only paid 1p for the house and they suddenly discovered it was worth a million pounds, no crime has been committed. It is for the seller to choose how much they accept for the sale. It is for them to research and check how much it is worth. There is no legal or moral duty for a buyer to tell someone that what they are selling is worth more. There are many instances where houses are sold below market value deliberately, usually for a quick sale.

As for those that say they’d keep it and ridiculing the OP for handing it over, I really do hope you realise what an awful person that makes you. And the person who kept the £4.6k knowing the rightful owner is alive and well, has made up a lie ready to tell the rightful owner, and then laughed about it - well there’s a special place in hell for people like you.

There are some truly awful people on this thread. And I suspect the ones who said they’d keep it are not the ones struggling to put food on the table, or are unsure if they can afford fuel this winter. Because people in that situation have far, far more empathy for someone losing their money and the devastating impact that can have.

It doesn’t matter where you find the money, the law is clear. If you find money which you know not to be yours and keep it for yourself, you can be prosecuted for ‘theft by finding’. Where you find money left behind by a house vendor, it’s regarded as ‘chattels’. In this case your starting point needs to be the conveyancing solicitor, so you’ve done the right thing. If the vendors have confirmed in the conveyancing that they are giving up all rights to any chattels on the land, then the chattels are yours. Unless this has happened, its still the property of the vendor and you have a duty to try to contact them to return it.

There was a post upthread somewhere about taking money left behind by cash machine users. There was a case in our local news a few weeks back about this. The same law applies and a woman was filmed by a camera at the cashpoint pocketing cash she found on the machine. When the owner reported the loss to the bank, the woman was traced and prosecuted. I think the machine retracts the cash if it’s not removed within a certain time, but anyone finding cash like this should remember they’re probably caught on camera and easily traceable.

Neither of my parents had care costs before they died. My dad’s sister cleared out his house so if there was any money she’d have found it! He lived 200 miles away but moved in with me two years before he died.

Presumably if you had found the 4K and kept it, you would have been equally astounded if it came to light and you were prosecuted ? Keeping money you find and know is not yours, is illegal, no matter where you find it - it’s theft by finding and you hand it in to police, who log it and try to find the owner within 28 days. At that point it becomes yours if no one claims it. Finding a substantial amount of money in a house you’ve just bought and keeping it opens up a whole can of worms because it’s regarded as chattels and if the vendor hasn’t stated in the conveyancing that he gives up the right to any chattels found on the land, then they’re still legally his. Not dumb to try to trace the owner, but common sense.

So, taking the law into their own hands and meting out their own punishment then. That’s mature.

Depends on the conveyancing - if the vendors haven’t given up the rights to chattels found on the land, then the money is still theirs and there is a legal obligation to try to find them to hand the money back.

Just come to this thread and there are some very dishonest people on it, but this is by far the worst. It’s disgusting on so many levels. You’ve pocketed money that doesn’t belong to you. You know the person who sold you the house is elderly, still alive, possibly has dementia, and you still kept the money. They could probably have used it for care or towards funeral costs, or these days to keep warm or feed themselves. You even have a cover story ready to bamboozle an elderly person so that you don’t have to return money rightfully theirs. It’s not ‘finders keepers’ - the law of the land says it’s theft by finding and it doesn’t belong to you. No wonder you feel guilty - you should be ashamed. If the previous owner can prove the money was there when you took possession of the house, and there’s nothing in the conveyancing rescinding ownership of chattels found on the land, they can legally demand it back. Rather hoping they recognise themselves on this thread actually.

No it wouldn’t. It would be finders’ theft and would still belong to the previous owner.

Don’t talk rubbish. You don’t buy a house and everything in it - it depends on the terms of the conveyancing and the OP has done exactly the right thing for future peace of mind. If you find cash anywhere it comes under finders theft if you keep it and you can be prosecuted. Honestly - in this case it’s such an easy thing to contact the vendor via the conveyancing solicitor and just hand it back, why would you not ?

Yes it is, if you’re a thief.

Then you’d be just as horrendously dishonest an individual as willwewontwe then wouldn’t you ?

Legally it’s the property of the old owners because it was present when they sold the house and should be handed back.

It most definitely is dishonest. Finders theft is the law and after a house sale, the rightful owner, the vendor, would have been easy to trace. OP has done the right thing

@Rosscameasdoody thank you for your efforts in trying to set people straight. At least 50 hours of Laws 101 at law school was on Finders law - I sat a three hour exam on it and it is very detailed. It is not “finders keepers losers weepers”! My lecturer would have pointed out that@willwewontwe was legally in the wrong and offered an extra hour’s lecture on ethics and morals to boot.

The solicitor isn’t responsible for anything physically wrong with the property - that would be the surveyor, providing whatever they missed was within the parameters of the type of survey commissioned. And you do have recourse with the vendor via the solicitor after the sale, if anything you find that was not disclosed before the sale, but you have to do it immediately on discovery. We had a problem with a badly overgrown back garden when we moved in - vacant possession and had been left to rot since the sale was agreed. We left it until the following day to report it to the solicitor. We were told there was nothing they could do, as it should have been reported immediately on discovery. Cost us a couple of grand to fix.

Can I just say one thing to all you greedy, grabby people on this thread. Karma’s a bastard !!

If karma was a bastard then most of the rich people out there would be skint!

Twaddle

Yes @Rosscameasdoody I guess I will be. Ever heard the phrase, ‘you can’t shame the shameless?’ Telling me I’m a horrendously dishonest individual for keeping money does nothing to me. I’d be £4.5K more in my pocket. Happy days:)