A Cleveland contractor found what amounted to a $2.7 million fortune in the walls of a house he was renovating. The homeowner offered him 10%, but he wants to keep it all, his lawyers enacting a centuries old “treasure trove” common law provision. Steel boxes contained rare 1929-series Cleveland Federal Reserve bank notes, worth about $85 each, $500 bills and a $1,000 bill. Tipster Zakarth quipped, “If the contractor had found a poison leak would he take ownership of that?” What do you think?
Who gets the fortune found in house walls? [Chron] (Thanks to Zakarth!)
More From Consumerist
-
Apparently People Don’t Like The New JCPenney
-
Sears Sends Appliance Installer Who Charges Extra To Do Crappy Job
-
Citi Has A Very Loose Definition Of “Expedited” When It Comes To Fixing Huge Holes In Roof
-
Legislator: Traffic Camera Manufacturers Should Be Fined For Each Error
-
Will Affordable Care Act Lead To More Or Less People With Employer-Sponsored Insurance? (Hint: No One Knows)
It’s lawyer time! My bet is on the owner of the house.
I hear that Scott Boras is representing the contractor.
This article provides some information on this kind of thing:
[www.straightdope.com]
Tipster Zakarth quipped, “If the contractor had found a poison leak would he take ownership of that?” What do you think?
Yeah really.. would the contractor sued if he found a poison leak and got sick? Prob..
Homeowner was nice enough to offer the 10%
The article brings out some important. This is not a slam dunk legally. Courts have been trending towards overturning trove common law. Further, whatever the trial court decides will likely be appealed.
One might even refer to the 10% as a fee of some kind…. perhaps a Finder’s Fee?
One thing I have leaned metal detecting yards…. is that one should expect that the owner will snatch up ANYTHING you find, keep it for themselves, smile & tell you to get off their property. That’s why I carry around some simple silver coins to show the owner instead of what I REALLY found (I dont usually find anything valuable…but I have an attachment to the items I find, while the owner just sees dollar signs).
IF I were the contractor… I would have kept my discovery a secret, removed it (so I could quickly assess the loot in private), return half of it, THEN inform the homeowner.
IMO a “finder’s fee” is BS!… at the very least he should get one-third of the loot… if not half!
@Rusted: I’d think so too. If it was in the house when the house was sold to me, it’s mine. If you wanted to keep it you should have removed it first.
I assume you have permission to go around with your metal detector and dig up someone’s yard. If not, then you might find some unintentional metal – buckshot in your ass.
@forgottenpassword: Of course I would. If it’s in my yard and you didn’t accidentally drop it, it’s in MY yard for a reason.
Now get off my lawn!
@stanfrombrooklyn: No kidding. And he’s admitting he’d steal things from houses that aren’t his, for financial gain. This joker needs to be on the wrong side of a lawsuit himself. Or, forget lawsuit, I’ll have the state prosecute, and someone who tries that on me will face cold hard time.
The difference between treasure trove law and regular finders law is somewhat vague. In regular finders law, the owner of the locus in quo (the home/property, etc) has constructive possession of everything on/in it. That makes it all theirs. However, “treasure trove” applies when the “found” item was specifically hidden away on the property and the owner has no reason to know it is there. It wasn’t “lost” or “misplaced”, but hidden. In those cases, the finder has rights to the property. It does seem pretty obscure, and personally I think it should be abolished in favor of giving the owner of the locus in quo possession.
I’m with Buran 100% on this as well as the metal detector guy.
In addition… when this news story first came out days ago…. it was reported that it was decided on the spot that the loot would be shared, but when the homeowner found out the tremenous value of it…. the owner changed her mind & only offered a finder’s fee (10%).
Of course… could just be hearsay…. but that’s what was reported at the time.
Some advice when finding ANYTHING of tremendous value…. is to keep it quiet & tell noone, because there may be people coming out of the woodwork to try to take it away from you (legally or not) …. in cluding city/county/state/federal entities.
Silence is golden!
I doubt he’ll get a penny. On close calls legally, which I don’t even think this is, the judge is going to go in favor of public policy and public interest. Do you think any court wants to set the precedent of contracts being able to keep what they “dig up” through “necessary duty”? They might settle, but if it goes to a trial his chances are very slim.
@BigBoat: Technically, the public policy is to award the loot to the contractor, as per @Pylon83‘s explanation.
If the property, as in the house itself, did not belong to the contactor when he was renovating it then I don’t see how he is able to try and keep the money. If the homeowner had accidently left her wedding ring laying on the windowsill of the kitchen, and the contractor found it would that mean he would get to keep it, if she had left a car stored in the garage of the home and he took it would that mean he had a right to just take it and say it was his?
Just because you find something does that mean you have a right to keep it? Would you legally be able to keep a bag of money that fell out of the back of an armored truck?
To me his arguement that he should be able to keep the money makes no sense.
She needs to turn the tables on him and charge HIM with theft!
This article explains quite a bit about the “treasure trove” rule and how it was in actuality only applied a few times between 1904 and 1948, and has since been mostly disregarded in favor of the “mislaid property” rule.
[www.archaeology.org]
It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me that one can “find” something in someone’s house and not have that item belong to the owner of the house.
One thing that would be interesting to know is whether the homeowner and contractor had a written contract in place and, if so, what it says. Construction contracts often address the issue of salvage and who it belongs to. Usually, this applies to things like scrap metal but perhaps it would apply in this case.
@BigBoat:
There is no “precedent” to set. The precedent was set YEARS and YEARS ago when this doctrine was developed. The real question is whether the judge will decided to take this occasion to overturn it. As the law stands now, the loot goes to the contractor. Either way, based on the amount of money, it will go to trial, and appeal, and maybe another appeal.
@stanfrombrooklyn:
of course permission is obtained, however some owners will take everything you’ve found & tell you to piss off. Some owners will literally follow you around the yard & practiclly POUNCE on anything you dig up. You see… they think that every silver coin or item found is very valuable when in fact most coins found are worth less than a buck or two. And gold is EXTREMELY hard to find (because it registers the same as a lot of metal trash items) so most dont bother looking for it (unless they are on the beach).
Also… metal detecting often requires a certain amount of skill. Sure, beginners can find things right off the bat, but finding EVERYTHING is often hard because of electrical interference (from power lines), the masking effect of trash metal items, shitty mineralized ground that the detector finds hard to read through, deep & barely detectable objects…. etc. etc.. If the OWNER rented a metal detector….. odds are he wouldnt be able to find much of anything & give up.
When it is mentioned that the person who’s yard I am detecting says they lost a ring in that yard…. the owner always gets the ring… I will often try to find it for them, but if they are simple coins that have been lost in the yard upwards of 50+ years ago…. I get those! They are only worth something to me (I dont cash in or sell my finds … I dont do it for the $$$)… the owner just sees what they think are valuable coins (when they are almost always NOT).
My point is that most items found in a person’s yard are not valuable ,but are worth more to me than they are to an owner.
@SkyeBlue:
It’s an entirely different concept from the one which you have described. The “Treasure Trove” rule applies only to things that were hidden on the property/ in the home by a previous owner/possessor, not to things that were lost there, or mislaid, or simply placed on a table. You’re confusing the issue. I will admit it is a bit of a complex law, though.
Since the original owner left no heirs and the current house owned came into the treasure trove merely through possession of the house and further that she would never have known about the treasure if the contractor wasn’t remodeling, it would seem that fairest settlement would be for each to get 50%.
But greed knows no bounds.
@selianth: That’s a really interesting article espeically the part that says that the original application of this “Treasure Trove” notion was erroneous!
@forgottenpassword:
Just because they are more valuable to you than the owner doesn’t mean you get to keep them. Even if you are on the property with permission, if you find property that was lost or mislaid, and that does not constitute a “Treasure trove”, you have no rights to it.
Am I the only one who noticed that the money is not worth $2.7 million, and the original post and headline say? The face value of the bills is $182,000, their appraised value to collectors is $500,000. The $2.7 million number is used to illustrate what their face value would be in today’s inflated dollars. Hiding $182,000 in the 1930s would be equivalent to hiding $2.7 million today. The original poster mis-read the article.
These guys will argue over & over about it in court until all of the money found has to be spent on lawyers and court costs!
Sounds like the contractor is no more than a common thief. If he took money off the dresser or from an envelope in the kitchen cabinet, it’s stealing. This is no different. He should take his 10 percent and be glad he’s not facing a countersuit for being a greedy, ignorant jackass.
the contractor should have just taken the %10. if he loses in court, he may not get anything.
i collect old bills and coins and if it were me, he would have got nothing, as i held on to it for my collection. (i know call me a hoard.) but to me its an investment, the value of those bills will only increase in time.
I’m betting on the owner on this one. The only way the contractor would have gotten it all would be by not mentioning it.
Here’s a good news article on the subject: [www.archaeology.org]
@Pylon83:
We are talking about simple coins lost in a yard 50+ years ago…. not some long lost cache of civil war gold coins. If I spent the time, effort & the expertise it took to find a few silver coins…. I think I should be able to keep them for the most part. Or at the very least most of them. SURE! the owner probably has the technically legal right to take everything I worked to find & then tell me to get the fuck off his property, but is it fair? Lets be reaslistic here. The law is supposed to be fair & just, but a lot of times it isnt.
Now if I DID find a cache of civil war era gold coins…. I would take half then report the rest to the landowner. I wouldnt take it all. I think that would be fair. Hell!, even in england (where REAL treasure is found every year in fields by metal detectorists)…. the government divvies the value up between landowner & finder and if a museum doesnt want to buy it & pay you, then you get to split up & keep your portion of the actual treasure. The landowner doesnt get it all.
@Pylon83: That depends. If they had established a prior contract of some type (which since he has permission is logical) then that contract overrides. If I agree to give you all the non-rings in exchange for searching for rings, I can’t change my mind after the fact when you find a 1933 gold double eagle.
Just want to point out that the need for fair laws regarding the finding of treasure is so that people wont find it & keep it a secret in fear of it being taken away from them. If you werent assured that you would get your fair share by law… then you would keep it & not report it. By having fair laws…. you are more likely to report it. And it could have historical value. I remember several stories about the state of florida wanting ALL of the shipwrek treasure found off its coasts that others have worked hard to find for many years.
In this country (USA) the laws are hardly fair to the finder…. its the complete opposite in england.
Believe me… if the laws were more fair here, I wouldnt advocate keeping a found treasure & not reporting it. Like I said before…. if you find treasure in the US… people/government entities will attempt to take it from you… so with the current laws…. keep silent.
@amed01: Agreed- as soon as it became a legal fight, I would have taken the 10% and run. The actual 500K current value of the stash will fund the initial judgement and maybe one appeal, Take your 50k, make a big payment on your ARM, and stop paying lawyers.
Everyone would be smart to listen to Pylon83 for he knows what he is talking about.
@huadpe: you are right though most modern construction contracts don’t stipulate about treasure.
I think it also depends on whether the contractor got the smart idea of actually pricing the bills as antiques/collectables and not just on face value of the money. If the owner just wanted to cash in the money for face value then the contractor should protest and get above the face value in the sale. If the owner wanted the antique value and the contractor wanted face value then give him a percentage as finder fee.
All in all they both are up the creek as the lawyers will profit from their battle and government will get a chunk of any proceeds from the antique/collectable value of the bills.
@num1skeptic: But when he wins it all in court….Contract law says it is his….
If it was on that guy’s property, then it is his money and not the contractor’s.
@reasonsnotrules:
Your comment makes no sense. When he wins it all in court contract law says it is all his? Contract law is likely not at issue here. This is property law.
@IrisMR:
Have you read the article or any of the comments? According to the common law, it belongs to the contractor.
if the contractor has any legal claim to this money, i am convinced the law is fucked up.
also, there are a lot of would-be thieves in this thread!
“It’s a thorny legal issue all right. I’ll need to
refer to the case of Finders v. Keepers.”
@forever_knight:
I do agree. I hope the judge takes the occasion to overturn the law.
I can’t believe it. I’m agreeing with Pylon83!
@forgottenpassword: I can’t explain it, but you sort of creep me out.
The entire thing is that if it wasn’t for the contractor, the owner would NEVER have known the property was there. That’s the difference. The owner never had possession of the money. He didn’t know it existed.
Might be interesting if the court found that the contractor was an agent of the homeowner … (Independent Contractors can be agents in some situations). I wonder what duties he would have hmmm… I’ll take a look.