> Sguros filed a complaint against the real estate company in February, saying in filings that he discovered West in the home while he was on duty and detailing how he subsequently began to clean, secure and invest in the property. However, he never established in his records that he came to be involved in the home through a purchase, lease, probate appointment, deed or relationship with West’s heirs, the arrest affidavit said.
Wow, cops certainly know how to produce a confession.
It looks like he was working toward an adverse possession claim. In Florida it's 7 years of "open and notorious" possession, as well as paying all property taxes (which it sounds like he did), filing a letter with the appraiser's office (which it sounds like he did), and improving the property (which he did). His adverse possession claim was interrupted 4 years into the 7 year clock, and then he tried to file an "unjust enrichment" claim to get the money he spent on the property back.
His big mistake was forging the signature and impersonating the decedent. If he'd just signed under his own name and hoped nobody noticed, no felonies would've been committed and he would have a case to get back the $200K in the "unjust enrichment" lawsuit.
I'm quite sure you can't actually claim adverse posession on anything that is court administered (ie in probate) - if that were the case, you'd have people coming out of woodwork left and right to try that just given how long probate takes in general.
Probaby a long shot to find someone admitted to the Florida bar to chime in here.
I asked Gemini specifically about the loophole you highlight, and why more people don't commit adverse possession on houses that are in probate. It came up with:
1) Probate usually takes far less than 7 years - in this news story, it was done in 3
2) The adverse possession claim will come up on any title search, which any probate attorney or real estate agent would likely do. From the article, it looks like this is what actually caught the cop here.
3) Usually heirs that want to keep the house will pay property taxes on it. This resets the clock, and they'll get notification that somebody has already paid the taxes on it when they try to do so.
For people who aren't paying property taxes, aren't actively checking on or maintaining the property, and aren't trying to sell it - those are exactly the cases that adverse possession laws are trying to solve. The state believes that it's better for people to actively maintain properties and pay taxes on them, and if you don't do that, you risk losing your claim on them.
It's 20 years without color of deed, meaning he would have needed a legitimate deed that conflicted with the deceased mans deed for the 7 year time line.
I've long thought that pure desire/drive is much more important than intelligence in just about everything, including things that stereotypically require intelligence like programming, math etc.
By "everything" I'm presuming you mean the trivial little games that humans these days are preoccupied with. You can play those games if you like, but they won't save you. Everybody dies in the end no matter how smart or motivated they are. The final score is always zero.
> Everybody dies in the end no matter how smart or motivated they are. The final score is always zero
This system of morality is cute when we compare a rich man and a pauper. It falls on its face when we compare a violent heathen and someone who tried to live well. It's lazy nihilism by another name, an absolution of moral agency, albeit with compelling dressing.
We're just dumb apes, we play dumb ape games, we cannot get outside of our nature, and it's in our nature to tell ourselves fairy tales about how special we think we are, I get it. That's why I'm a nihilist, because I can see that different peoples all have different stories about why they are absolutely convinced they are god's special chosen people.
Our "moral agency" is no different from that of a dog's, it's just the evolved game theory outcome of many millions of years living as social animals. It's an intuition about when to cooperate and when to compete.
As social animals we have devolved into violent heathens regularly throughout history if you think those violent tendencies isn't hardwired into your own DNA you're kidding yourself. When a technology is invented all of it's negative externalities and misuses are invented as well, and if said technology is used for violent heathenry, it's inventors are complicit.
And yes, I'm lazy, that's a win condition, why wouldn't I be? What were all those labour saving devices for if not so we can be lazy? Climate change is humanity's biggest threat. It is entirely the fault of people doing things, they're making a huge mess. Just chill out.
For your way of scoring maybe. If I can see and do some cool stuff along the way and maybe even love, then my final score will be non-zero, according to my scoring system.
This is different. I'm not commenting on morality. I'm saying they were cunning enough to pull this off–and get away with it for many years–but not smart enough to realize that pressing this legal claim would cause him to lose everything.
A real estate website tells me the average in that city is $400K. But it does seem pretty dumb to spend that amount of money on improvements when you know damn well your ownership is fraudulent and may come back to bite you.
I'd take that 214,000 figure with at least a grain of salt. That's the number he was asking to get paid back. Call me crazy but I don't totally trust him when it comes to details.
When a fraudulently obtained house costs $214k you may as well spend the $400k average house price in that city and avoid jail forever. Staying out of jail and continuing to work as a cop is easily worth more than $200k.
$214k is more than I have spent on the home I "own" (have a mortgage on) even adding in my downpayment over the last 7 years. He could have bought a home for what he claims to have spent.
Your original comment to which I was replying when you edited your comment:
> You have to count the total amount you will pay on the mortgage.
Yes. That's what I was counting, I have spent less than $214k on my house, repairs and mortgage.
Your comment after that was edited:
> A house price is a house price, you can't say it's only 20%.
What are you talking about? The question is could he have afforded a house for $214k, and the answer is yes. Houses in that area don't cost a minimum of $1 million, even the house he attempted to steal wasn't worth that much.
But he had liquid 214k to spend on improvements. So how is that different than being able to afford to save up 214k for a down payment?
The only thing I can think of is he is using extremely suspect math and a lot of that 214k comes from "sweat equity" billed at a ridiculous rate. Otherwise he'd easily be able to afford a mortgage in that area with 214k down.
jopsen 1 day ago
Wow, cops certainly know how to produce a confession.
kaydub 1 day ago
JumpCrisscross 1 day ago
nostrademons 1 day ago
His big mistake was forging the signature and impersonating the decedent. If he'd just signed under his own name and hoped nobody noticed, no felonies would've been committed and he would have a case to get back the $200K in the "unjust enrichment" lawsuit.
pxmpxm 1 day ago
Probaby a long shot to find someone admitted to the Florida bar to chime in here.
nostrademons 1 day ago
https://www.flsenate.gov/laws/statutes/2018/95.18
I asked Gemini specifically about the loophole you highlight, and why more people don't commit adverse possession on houses that are in probate. It came up with:
1) Probate usually takes far less than 7 years - in this news story, it was done in 3
2) The adverse possession claim will come up on any title search, which any probate attorney or real estate agent would likely do. From the article, it looks like this is what actually caught the cop here.
3) Usually heirs that want to keep the house will pay property taxes on it. This resets the clock, and they'll get notification that somebody has already paid the taxes on it when they try to do so.
For people who aren't paying property taxes, aren't actively checking on or maintaining the property, and aren't trying to sell it - those are exactly the cases that adverse possession laws are trying to solve. The state believes that it's better for people to actively maintain properties and pay taxes on them, and if you don't do that, you risk losing your claim on them.
AppalachianEng 1 day ago
nostrademons 1 day ago
https://ilabacalaw.com/blog/real-estate/florida-easement-law...
The Florida statute on adverse possession explicitly says 7 years, with no exceptions:
https://www.flsenate.gov/laws/statutes/2018/95.18
AppalachianEng 1 day ago
JumpCrisscross 1 day ago
nostrademons 1 day ago
p1necone 1 day ago
hackeraccount 17 hours ago
jazzyjackson 1 day ago
Fricken 1 day ago
JumpCrisscross 1 day ago
This system of morality is cute when we compare a rich man and a pauper. It falls on its face when we compare a violent heathen and someone who tried to live well. It's lazy nihilism by another name, an absolution of moral agency, albeit with compelling dressing.
Fricken 1 day ago
Our "moral agency" is no different from that of a dog's, it's just the evolved game theory outcome of many millions of years living as social animals. It's an intuition about when to cooperate and when to compete.
As social animals we have devolved into violent heathens regularly throughout history if you think those violent tendencies isn't hardwired into your own DNA you're kidding yourself. When a technology is invented all of it's negative externalities and misuses are invented as well, and if said technology is used for violent heathenry, it's inventors are complicit.
And yes, I'm lazy, that's a win condition, why wouldn't I be? What were all those labour saving devices for if not so we can be lazy? Climate change is humanity's biggest threat. It is entirely the fault of people doing things, they're making a huge mess. Just chill out.
recursive 1 day ago
RunSet 1 day ago
JumpCrisscross 1 day ago
lazide 1 day ago
tanseydavid 1 day ago
triceratops 1 day ago
wrs 1 day ago
triceratops 1 day ago
If he spent so much, why not just buy his own house? The house in the article is nothing special to look at.
fallinghawks 1 day ago
JumpCrisscross 1 day ago
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50215874
hackeraccount 17 hours ago
cowlevel 1 day ago
triceratops 1 day ago
Jtsummers 1 day ago
cowlevel 1 day ago
Jtsummers 1 day ago
> You have to count the total amount you will pay on the mortgage.
Yes. That's what I was counting, I have spent less than $214k on my house, repairs and mortgage.
Your comment after that was edited:
> A house price is a house price, you can't say it's only 20%.
What are you talking about? The question is could he have afforded a house for $214k, and the answer is yes. Houses in that area don't cost a minimum of $1 million, even the house he attempted to steal wasn't worth that much.
cowlevel 1 day ago
zrobotics 1 day ago
The only thing I can think of is he is using extremely suspect math and a lot of that 214k comes from "sweat equity" billed at a ridiculous rate. Otherwise he'd easily be able to afford a mortgage in that area with 214k down.
cowlevel 1 day ago