£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?

That is actually hideous. I can't believe you're so smug and self satisfied at keeping someone else's money, when you know who they are and you know they're still alive.

The only time I've ever kept any money that I found is some 12 years ago. Myself and the kids - both school age at the time - were in the park (quite a large park on the edges of the town where we lived,) and I found a brown envelope in a bush on the edge of the park near the woodland.

The kids were running around behind me kicking a football about and I looked at this envelope, and there was a purse in it, bulging with banknotes. I sat and counted it out - there was almost £700 in in 20's and 10s. In the purse was a drivers licence that said (and this isn't the real name and address obvs,) 'Emily Jackson - 15 Peacock Rise.' The postcode was on it, and so I knew exactly where this property was.

So I collected the kids together about 10 minutes later, and dropped them off home. As this 15 Peacock Rise was only two miles up the road and only a mile from where we lived, I actually knocked on the door and asked for Emily Jackson. I didn't say why I was there or what I had or anything, I just asked for her.

The man who answered the door said he'd never heard of Emily Jackson! (I should probably say at this point that the drivers licence said 'Emily Jackson' was 24 years old.) So I said 'there's no Emily Jackson here then - she's around mid 20s???' He said 'no - no Emily Jackson here. I've lived here for 33 years and there's definitely no Emily Jackson here. I've actually only got one son and he's 31... I certainly don't have a woman in her mid 20s living here.' So I'm not gonna lie I took the money home, the purse home, and the envelope home, and I just kept it in the spare bedroom. Told no-one.

If I had heard on the Grapevine, in the papers, in the neighbourhood, online, or anything - that somebody had lost a purse in an envelope stuffed with nearly £700, I'd have quite happily handed it over. I didn't give it to the police because I wasn't completely sure that it would go back to the original owner.

Also it was really very odd that this drivers licence was registered to this Peacock Rise address, to Emily Jackson who was only 24 years old, yet the man I met said he lived there for over 30 years and he'd never heard of this woman. So I have a slight suspicion that that was a fake bogus drivers licence, and that might even have been drug money or something. So some 5 months later I started to spend the money. I put it towards train fares and 2 hotel rooms for several nights for me DH and the kids, for a trip to Edinburgh. Used the rest towards bills.

And I don't feel even remotely guilty about it coz as I say, nobody came forward for it and really believe it was a fake drivers licence, and I got a slight suspicion it was drug money.

Is people being different always such a difficult concept for you @PurpleButterflyWings?

Just to clear up a confusion. Although the notes may stop being legal tender in September, they are always exchangeable at the Bank of England, by post or in person, for new ones to the same face value.

The bank accept old paper notes but I imagine if you turned up with thousands, they might ask a few questions. And you can't just swap for new, they need to be paid into an account.

We found a discontinued £10 in DS shorts when we got them out the year after the notes changed to polymer. I think it has been through the wash so I guess it was money laundering!!😃

They are not obliged to accept them by law.

Many banks WILL accept old banknotes, but they don't HAVE to. They CAN refuse.

I think you may be confusing banks in general and the Bank Of England who will accept all old notes

We had a bit of a giggle and exH tried the mules on. We defrosted the freezer & threw the enormous carp in the bin. I suppose we should have returned the items....Oh and they left us with a loft full of junk. Perhaps a new thread should be started re things you found in your house when you moved in.

Why on earth would you take all your jewellery to the zoo?

Definitely theft, he should have handed it in to the council. Just like the kitchen fitters, it was never his when he found it on somebody else's property.

Bet she's the sort to say " string them up" if her Facebook friends get burgled too.

For all those saying it’s your house and you own the money…this isn’t as easy as that.
You have a legal duty to put reasonable effort in to find the rightful owner. The old saying “finders keepers” isn’t actually true. It can still be considered theft.

Whats reasonable effort though?

I mean in the case of the house clearance person, paid to clear the property, told there is no next of kin and told to dispose of everything - surely thats reasonable enough already. There is no person missing that money, the person hiring them to do the job has no legal claim to it either... its the person paid to clear the property who gets to decide what goes where re tip, second hand sales, scrap etc etc.

Yet that person is getting a lot of unpleasant responses.

In the OP's case, the home owner is deceased, so again there is no legal claimant to the money. The OP bought the property and everything in it - it is up to the vendor to ensure they do not accidentally sell something they do not wish to sell and as that vendor is presumably a competent adult, thats their issue, not the OP's.

If someone posted here that they realised a year later they'd accidentally left a treasured antique in the loft, would anyone be telling them that the property purchasers were evil theiving bastards for finding and selling it?

To all those insisting that this a cut and dried case of handing the money back because you’re so honest. What if you discovered the house had all along been worth far more than the price you paid? Would you insist on contact the vendors and paying the difference?

You and the kitchen fitters have restored my faith in humanity! I wish I could say I would have been as honest!

In the OP's case, the home owner is deceased, so again there is no legal claimant to the money.

Of course there is a legal claimant - initially the executors of his/her estate, subsequently the beneficiaries. Do you seriously imagine the estate of every deceased person just disappears?

I would have done the same, OP. Well done.

That couldn't happen. A house is worth as much as someone wants to pay for it at the point when it is up for sale, no more, no less.

Would have used it to pay this winter's electricity bill!

People do know Karma isn’t real don’t they, like God and fairies aren’t either?

So why was it any way better that it went into his pocket? How can it be morally OK to say "I am going to steal this money rather than risk someone else stealing it?"

Did he still bill the council for the work he did?

I agree, my hand went to my mouth in horror.

So.. morally, who should get the money in the house clearance situation?

The person paid to remove everything from the property - everything would include 'a bag of money' .

Or.. someone else?

If the council want to benefit from tenants without any next of kin, dying and leaving valuable goods, then their house clearance contracts need to read 'dispose of everything except cash/valuable goods'.

But they don't. They read 'dispose of everything'. Thats how that job works, sometimes its pure crap and goes to the tip (which as a licenced refuse person, costs.) and sometimes theres something worth selling on or keeping.

Councils do not employ expensive clearance contractors who will sort through all the guff and nonsense and pick out the valuables and preciouses and pop them to one side - it would be FAR too expensive and take far too much time.

They go for cheap contracts, which are given because the job is low hassle and may come with the odd perk.

@willwewontwe this is terrible.
And you put it here in so open.
Mumsnets threat’s are known sometimes being pick up by journalists and before you know it will be in the papers! And the previous owner of your house will read it and knock on your door rightly!
Disgusting!
And I’m appalled by how many people would just keep the money!
I would never even dream about it.
For example my poor mum has no bank account and all her pensions is being hidden under her bed under a floor bean. I can’t imagine that some shit like lots of you here would find it and keep it!

If a property is marketed poorly or the vendor’s circumstances make them desperate for a quick sale it can easily get sold for under its market value