I'm in the US. What I see is that stolen+sold property tends to belong to the original owner, not the purchaser. Is it different in the UK?
They were shocked by the reluctance of the police to enforce their property rights simply on their say-so. They were shocked by it because they hadn't really thought through how the system works. It is not the role of the police to evict someone who is the registered owner merely on the say-so of someone else who claims to have been defrauded. Clearly there are good reasons for this.
The article presents the facts as though they will never get their house back (with some creative ambiguity about what 'legal owner' means - does it mean the legally registered owner, regardless of any past fraud? or the actual rightful owner) because it makes a more interesting article than 'Man left annoyed after a painstaking legal process restores him his property rights'.
No. The criminal matter, as alleged, is that someone scammed the buyer, the solicitors and the Land Registry into believing that they are who they were not. That is not a civil matter, it is I believe fraud.
If a bloke sells their house, but then gets cold feet, or not happy with the compensation that is a civil matter. This is not what is alleged.
Maybe the argument is that without proof that the fraudulent seller made a gain, it is merely a Tort and not Fraud?
It's just typical first level support. Police didn't see any obvious simple solution and wanted the issue out of their hair so they said the thing which usually gets the issue out of their hair. The person persisted and escalated the issue higher. (for example to the news papers.) And now "The BBC put Mr Hall in touch with Bedfordshire Police's fraud squad, which has begun an investigation."
Did you notice who you didn't list there?
The home owner.
The criminal issue doesn't involve him!
Of course it does. If it is as alleged, then the home owner and the new "owner" is equally victims of the crime.
1) Has the person committed an offence (probably yes: fraud by false representation, contrary to s.2 Fraud Act 2006);
2) Is there a reasonable prospect of conviction? (Who knows: will depend on the evidence); and
3) Is it in the public interest to prosecute? (Almost certainly yes).
'Who has been defrauded' doesn't even matter for establishing (1), only that the fraudster intended to make a gain for himself or a loss for someone else by making a false representation (in this case that he was the owner of the house). So in this case it really is a bit crappy from the police: if a fraud has been committed it doesn't in principle matter who complains about it, they should investigate (or at least register the crime) anyway.
Well that's what he cares about.
You might think that such quibbling cannot possibly matter, and maybe it doesn't in the UK, but in the US it can.
Here's a case from 2008 in Washington state [1].
Company X leased a car to Y.
Y forged documents to show X had released their interest in the car and then Y sold the car to innocent buyer Z.
X sued to recover the car from Z.
Washington law (RCW 10.79.050) states "All property obtained by larceny, robbery or burglary, shall be restored to the owner; and no sale, whether in good faith on the part of the purchaser or not, shall divest the owner of his rights to such property".
But there was no larceny, robbery, or burglary in this case so that did not apply.
Z got to keep the car.
[1] https://caselaw.findlaw.com/wa-court-of-appeals/1210407.html
Edit: technically they are still relevant if the property has not been sold since the records were digitised in the 1990s
I spent a fun evening flicking through the records of owners, the price they'd paid for it, and the few details provided (occupation, etc). All dating back to when the building was built in 1890 or so.
Later I left the country, and moved to Finland. After a year or two here I wanted to sell the flat as I'd decided I wasn't going back. Despite going through the process of ensuring the registry was updated I had to mail them back to the solicators based in Scotland prior to selling the flat.
The sale was carried out 100% remotely; I had a couple of phone calls, and when I balked at the use of a FAX machine I printed out a few forms/documents from emails, signed them, and physically posted them back to the solicators.
Happily I'd had the foresight to leave a spare set of keys with a trusted friend, which were used for the viewings, etc. It probably helped that the solicator who handled the sale had also handled the registration of the deeds when I received them so they were probably confident it was a flat I owned..
When I queried things I was told "The only registry is definitive, but .. things are .. smoother .. with the physical deeds". Made no sense to me, but I wasn't going to argue.
Our PAO gives a receipt at filing. Copies are available after the deed is processed. In my state, they're public record; in my county, they're available online.
source: worked for real estate attorney
You don't want police running around "taking people's house back" without due process, presumbly.
I don't think he will have any ablity to forceably reobtain the house, although potentially, if he refunded the buyers money (after getting it from the accused), they might agree to give it to him back. On the other hand, if already cleared, it would probably be easier for the real owner to get his money back and buy somewhere else.
Very sad though.