Money Moral Dilemma: Should we return valuables to their owner?

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  • PasturesNew
    PasturesNew Posts: 70,698 Forumite
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    Legally they're yours.

    But, it would depend on what it was and how valuable .... e.g. if it were a box of personal jewellery and some letters ... I'd want the owners to have it back ... if it were just a Rembrandt ... I'd flog that, it's mine :)
  • -taff
    -taff Posts: 14,501 Forumite
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    MSE_Sarah wrote: »
    Are we obliged to attempt to do so?


    No.




    Lengthen message blah blah
    Shampoo? No thanks, I'll have real poo...
  • charlotte1994
    charlotte1994 Posts: 854 Forumite
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    It depends what it is, it could be family heirlooms, but if they have been left there they can't be worth that much to whoever owned them previously. Since it's not the last owner I would say you could keep them
  • maisie_cat
    maisie_cat Posts: 2,068 Forumite
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    I would try to return it personally, at least having tried you can rest easy.
    When we moved from our last house we left one of the car keys on the kitchen worktop. The new owner threw it in the bin, didn't even take it to the estate agent. It cost us £150 to reprogramme the car and replace the key. I couldn't understand why he just didn't drop it off, but apparently it wasn't his problem.
    We found a christening certificate and some old photos in this house and took it around to the old owner. It took us 10 minutes to walk there and it is a nice feeling doing the right thing, or at least attempting to.
  • PasturesNew
    PasturesNew Posts: 70,698 Forumite
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    charlotte1994 wrote: »
    It depends what it is, it could be family heirlooms, but if they have been left there they can't be worth that much to whoever owned them previously. Since it's not the last owner I would say you could keep them

    They might not have known. e.g. many a mother of a dead WW1 soldier, or widow of one, might've at some point boxed it all up and put it in the attic... and nobody knew about the collection. Ditto if somebody'd inherited stuff from their parents/aunts etc... put them up there "for safe keeping" if they were going away on holiday and didn't want them burgled.... then time passed and nobody knew of their existence. Even if you knew that at some time in the past you remembered the items and they were no longer around .... and you weren't the one doing the house clearance at the time, it might all just be a vague memory in your head.
  • PasturesNew
    PasturesNew Posts: 70,698 Forumite
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    maisie_cat wrote: »
    We found a christening certificate and some old photos in this house and took it around to the old owner. It took us 10 minutes to walk there and it is a nice feeling doing the right thing, or at least attempting to.

    I found a collection of about 20 birthday cards/similar in a house, possibly "every card the husband had sent to the wife since they met" - I drove round to the new address and posted them through the letterbox.
  • archie1411
    archie1411 Posts: 13 Forumite
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    Yes! - otherwise it's classed as theft by finding
  • PasturesNew
    PasturesNew Posts: 70,698 Forumite
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    archie1411 wrote: »
    Yes! - otherwise it's classed as theft by finding

    That's if you find something in the street. Ownership of items in a house transaction are a different rule.

    You often see things in the papers where people've found valuable stuff in a house and sold it at auction for great sums. Also, on Homes under the Hammer, when somebody buys a house and it's full of furniture they say "that's yours now, any plans to dispose of it"
  • happyinflorida
    happyinflorida Posts: 807 Forumite
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    Of course you should do your best to return them to the person they originally belonged to.

    Some keepsakes or valuables are put in lofts to try to prevent them from being stolen during a burglary but may either be forgotten about or an elderly/disabled person may not be able to get up into the loft to retrieve them. It doesn't mean they don't care about them, quite often people forget about things, so to get them back would be wonderful for them.

    Please do all you can to return them to their rightful owners or their family if they've died since moving - some people would be over the moon to get something their grandmother/grandfather once owned.
  • REJP
    REJP Posts: 325 Forumite
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    Well said. Stealing by finding. Why am I not surprised so many people think it alright to keep valuables found in lofts? Previous owners may be found by checking Council Tax records.
    A matter of conscience isn't it, and probably a generational thing. Wonder how many people don't see it as stealing? May be long lost family heirlooms which are of great value to owners or perhaps children of previous owners who died.
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