House clearance stash found

happywarmgun

Errata wrote: »

And the Judge would say "What would a reasonable person think ?"

Sadly, the judge would not. The judge would say 'What does the contract say?and then 'is the contract lawful?'. Law would be so much more fun if the test was 'what would a reasonable person think'!

Whatever people think of the right or wrongs I am certain that under the contract (which does seem legal on the little explained) anything remaining in the house after the relatives signed would become the property of the house clearance company.

As to the original question - it should be recorded as income on the books and subject to tax as per any other income.

trugmaker

The money is categorically yours and should be declared as income in exactly the same way as finding an item in a clearance to be valuable. I was in the house clearance / antiques biz for 12 years. I just stashed any cash for extras. What ya found religion or somethin! Ask your local MP he'll tell you what to do with it.

Errata

Whatever people think of the right or wrongs I am certain that under the contract (which does seem legal on the little explained) anything remaining in the house after the relatives signed would become the property of the house clearance company.

You may be right, but doesn't it depend on what's actually found. Can't see a house clearing company wanting to hang on to the proceeds of a bullion robbery or a lump of uranium if they came across them.

FB13

On the ownership of the money, the OP is wrong. His agreement was to effectively purchase the items he was removing. His client and him came to a understanding and agreement on what would be removed. There is a legal contract between the two parties for these items. However, neither party was aware of the cash. The client clearly would not have wanted it included. If this were to go to court, the judge would rule that there was no contract for the transfer of the money. OP would be ordered to return it. The different in this case between the money and a valuable vase is that both the OP and the client could know it was included, even if the seller was unaware of the value.(Side note: You could make a valid argument that even in the case of the vase that there was no contract for its sale and the OP would have to return money as the sale was of items of nominal value).

Practically speaking, if I were the OP, I'd hold onto the cash for a couple weeks. If no one claims it and it was a small amount, I'd stick it into my wallet and just spend it. The problem is if its a larger amount. You then have the problem of having to deal with it and having little documentation if challenged. If you declare it as income and you get audited, what do you say? If you deposit it into your personal account, you could run into money laundering problems.

FB13

So in summary and to reply to MrCarrot, you cannot sell something accidentally. No contract exists for the transfer of the money. It remains property of the OP's client.

If this went to court, the OP's client would have a hard time proving they are the owner of the money.

kalaika

FB13 wrote: »

...His agreement was to effectively purchase the items he was removing. His client and him came to a understanding and agreement on what would be removed. There is a legal contract between the two parties for these items...

I view it differently. I would say that the OP didn't buy the items. Instead he was employed to clear a house of its contents. He was paid for this service and as part of the contract formed in providing that service, agreement was made that everything removed became his property. He fulfilled his side of this contract by clearing the house as agreed and, as far as I see it, the contract was completed. At some point in time later, he was looking through the items that were removed and discovered the cash but can no longer identify which house it came from.

I would say that if the other party wanted to retain ownership of everything in the house then, instead of engaging the OP to provide the service he offered, they needed to either clear the house themselves or to employ someone to sort, identify and value the items on their behalf. If either of these options had been followed, they would have discovered the cash, it wouldn't have ended up in the OP's hands and this situation wouldn't have arisen (although isn't hindsight a wonderful thing...:rolleyes:)

Errata

Is it the amount or the principle that's the point ?

MrCarrot

FB13 wrote: »

On the ownership of the money, the OP is wrong. His agreement was to effectively purchase the items he was removing. His client and him came to a understanding and agreement on what would be removed. There is a legal contract between the two parties for these items. However, neither party was aware of the cash. The client clearly would not have wanted it included. If this were to go to court, the judge would rule that there was no contract for the transfer of the money. OP would be ordered to return it. The different in this case between the money and a valuable vase is that both the OP and the client could know it was included, even if the seller was unaware of the value.(Side note: You could make a valid argument that even in the case of the vase that there was no contract for its sale and the OP would have to return money as the sale was of items of nominal value).

Practically speaking, if I were the OP, I'd hold onto the cash for a couple weeks. If no one claims it and it was a small amount, I'd stick it into my wallet and just spend it. The problem is if its a larger amount. You then have the problem of having to deal with it and having little documentation if challenged. If you declare it as income and you get audited, what do you say? If you deposit it into your personal account, you could run into money laundering problems.

So in summary and to reply to MrCarrot, you cannot sell something accidentally. No contract exists for the transfer of the money. It remains property of the OP's client.

If this went to court, the OP's client would have a hard time proving they are the owner of the money.

I think this is exactly right.

Errata wrote: »

Is it the amount or the principle that's the point ?

The principle. Although as the value of the money found increases hypothetically, the more ridicilous it looks to say the OP is entitled to it.

John_Pierpoint

A few thoughts:

Is the money in out of date notes, so has to be paid into a bank?
If it were in the form of (say) Krugerrands, would that make any difference?

If the money was a bar of radioactive uranium (or more realistically a big bag of blue asbestos) what would be the attitude of the house clearance man and/or the executor of the deceased?

Personally I can say that we bought a house from an executor to include the furniture and in a secret compartment we found some valuables - we returned them but that was a moral decision not a legal one.

In this case "what the eye does not see the heart does not grieve" might be the best policy.

I wonder if the deceased had kept the money out of the bank to avoid paying tax on it?

Life is never black and white!

Personally, I think the executor is at fault for not diligently searching the property, before disposing of it.

John

[Deleted User]

Hi,

wouldn't it be nice if he could find where the money came from and return it to 'owners', and get a wee bung as a thank you.

They would be happy, 'hey, great guy that', he would have peace of mind, and a wee bit in his pocket, tax free.

But what if he discovers that the 'owners' live in the big house on the hill, driving about in Rollers, do they really need the money?

Oh, and to stop this scenario in the future, he could have some kind of ID system for each house clearance, just a wee sticker with a ref number.