Squatter wins court battle over ownership of house then sells it for $650,000

There are a lot of strange laws that exist in this world and I personally know some people who have rental properties in certain markets and have said it is an absolute nightmare to navigate all the rules and regulations that are there to protect the renters. I'm all about people being protected from the more powerful but some of these laws are absurd. In the case of my friend who owns rental property they had a shed on the same premises as the rental house. It was told to the tenants and is in the rental contract that they are not to use the shed or store anything in it. Well one of these tenants jimmied the lock and started parking his motorcycle in there.

The shed contained fertilizer and a number of other potentially toxic chemicals. My friend had no idea the tenant was using the shed because there are conditions in the lease that states that the owner of the property is not allowed on their own property without prior notice given to the tenant. It was winter and he didn't need the fertilizer so he just left it there. Come February the tenant was suing the owner of the property for exposing his family to toxic chemicals. The owner of the property would eventually win the court case but not until he endured thousands of dollars in legal fees. He was also unable to evict the tenant who simply decided he wasn't going to pay rent anymore. Eventually the Sherriff's office got involved and they got the tenant out.

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That was a bad real-world situation for my friend but there is a story in the U.K. about how a construction worker was working on a nearby house and over the weeks noticed that one of the houses on the same street that was unoccupied and also was not listed as being for sale or rent. He got into the house by breaking into it and then continued to check on the property for a while. After no one complained and none of the neighbors even took notice he decided to move in to the house. After several months of staying there occasionally he decided to move his entire family in.

Years went by and nobody ever complained so he continued to live there. He met the neighbors and simply told them that he bought the house. He didn't buy the house though and it turns out that the house was owned by someone who had passed away and the family members simply never checked up on the house. They presumed that since the house was their property that this would never be an issue.

Well it turns out that in this particular part of the world there is an extremely old law in the books that goes something like this

"someone in possession of a good without title becomes the lawful proprietor if the original owner doesn't show up after some time."

"some time" is a very vague term but the squatter, named Keith Best got a lawyer and based on this ancient law that was I guess useful in the 17th century he became the legal owner of this house that he paid absolutely nothing for. Best filed for legal ownership and was originally denied this because of course he should be denied this. However this was later overturned by a high court with the ancient law being cited as the reason why. To make matters even more odd, when it was discovered that Keith Best had indeed initially broken into the property has was charged and convicted of criminal trespass and breaking and entering. Best's lawyer argued that property ownership is a civil, not a criminal matter, and somehow convinced a judge that despite his client admitting that he broke into the property and stayed there illegally, that he was still entitled to the ownership of the property. This statement by the lawyer just convinces me even more than lawyers are the scum of the earth.

"It is a quirky law that benefits the economy because unused and unclaimed land and property gets recycled back into use."

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_{This is Keith Best}

Upon getting legal ownership of the house, which in my mind is just absurd that this was ever allowed to happen, Best soon sold it for nearly $650,000.

Mr. Best is now trying to claim that the negative publicity over what was rightfully seen as him stealing a house from a pensioner who was the rightful owner has cost him his job and has negatively affected his and his family's health. He also claims that getting ownership of the house cost him $500,000 in legal fees. Now I know lawyers charge outrageous prices, but this seems like a bit of a lie to me. He also claimed that the stress from the publicity killed his mom.

I don't know if he is going to try to sue someone over these "damages" but given the crazy world we live in it really wouldn't surprise me even a little bit.

Mr. Best is reported to be living in a large house in Essex and drives a Range Rover. That doesn't really sound to me like the kind of person that is suffering financially.