Topic: My girlfriends house in Germany - page 4. (Read 18822 times)

Just so anyone else reading is clear. We both know that OP is happy to escrow. This is just continuation of discussion of the escrow issue.

Escrow isn't needed because there are lawyers present. For fraud to happen here the lawyers would need to commit it. I'm not sure you appreciate this so asking for escrow seems a little unusual to me. (This combined with the fact that you think the property owner needs to be present to sell it is why I assumed you'd never purchased property before.)

You wouldn't be apologising because he didn't send information. You'd be apologising because you called him a scammer and then realised he wasn't.

If you still think he's potentially a scammer, why bid?

I can appreciate that if someone called me a scammer I'd be reluctant to provide them with information that could potentially leave me vulnerable.

Now you accept that the guy might be a 'noob' and not a scammer so why take such a strong stance from the outset?

It looks to me like you're a bit new to buying property too but I would never assume you were a scammer because of it.

I get that you're upset but can you see why others might be upset at you?

He probably assumed you were a troll much like you assumed he was a scammer. I guess that's fair play.


Seems like he has and he's given his reasons. Seems like you've changed your mind too and you've given your reasons.

You're both looking pretty similar to me right now.



I'm sure he'd pay for your time if you'd entered into some sort of agreement.


Seriously? 


I get buying a house is big and scary but you seem to be overreacting a lot. If you can't trust your lawyer then it doesn't matter if you have escrow or not - your contracts could end up being worth nothing. You're going to need a lawyer to audit your first lawyer...

The OP changing the terms of the deal is definitely bad in my opinion but reading his reasons it's not entirely unreasonable.

You kicked up a huge storm and now you're backing down without an apology saying that he was being straight all along but then finally you go back to 'scammer' again? I mean, I've read your posts for years and you come across as a pretty reasonable person most of the time so I just don't get why you're behaving like this.

I was able to confirm the address and some other information (without OPs help!). The house seems to be for sale and what he has said about the house seems to be true. I had to have a guy in Germany do this for me. The OP not giving me this information when he said he would just cost me more money and time.

There is not a reserve on the auction, he can't change the rules after the fact. If so he needs to pay me for the time I spent trying to verify his vague claims. The no reserve is what attracted me to this in the first place. The house is not worth 150 BTC and will never sell for that.

Honestly I think the auction should just be redone after he makes public the address and ways to confirm his story. Just do it again for 7 days with no reserve. However that might only be up to whoever wins this auction as OP has said he will sell no matter what and it is binding.

For OP to not sell the house would be trolling/scamming    Hopefully whoever wins lets the poor guy have a second go now that he understands what is needed. Address, clear info on escrow, lawyers contact info, stuff like that.

Peace

If you genuinely believe it to be a scam you won't be bidding, will you and if you do bit, it'll surely be for at least the reserve amount?

Thanks for being so understanding. To be honest I feel the same way as you, I never wanted to have to take that action but I can't even get hold of Mods for that forum- over a week of begging for one to come to my aid and totally ignored- so I don't have any way to fix it. If there was a way, for instance, to have deleted posts or have a mod clean up the auction then I would have had a lot more confidence in doing something like that.

I also had concerns that the people who were shouting the most 'scam' and trying to put people off buying the property were also the people who claimed to have the most interest in the property. So there is also a worry that said persons may have tried to put off other buyers to keep the price low. How can I tell? trust no one, is supposed to be the Forum motto......

In any case let's see where this goes and how it ends up. I really really want to see a positive result from this.

@Chang Noi - May I hazard you've never bought a house before?

Transplanting discussion from here as per OP's request:


Could you please point out exactly where in your OP you state that the auction will be cancelled due to spam?

Yes, people like the idea of getting a house for no reserve because that is what was stated in the OP of this auction. Perhaps they made their bids on that basis. Please note the time-stamp of the following quote compared to the previous quote.




In what was did I indicate that I was pissed off? In what way did I indicate that things are not going the way I would have liked? I have made no bids. I have only raised some concerns, and I will further clarify here, that imposing a reserve on this auction after having explicitly stated that there would be no reserve does not inspire confidence in your trustworthiness. It looks suspiciously like a bait-and-switch.

Regarding the outside chance of scoring a house for really, really cheap. Can you really blame someone for not wanting to have a chance at it when the terms are favourable? Can you really fault a potential customer for being attracted to such a deal? This fault does not lie with the customer, but lies with the original terms of the auction. They sure appear to favour winning the house for a price potentially much lower than market value.

As far as me ever bidding, I said I was thinking about it - toying with the idea, really. I did not say that I would have definitely made a bid. In fact, I have found this auction to be very interesting - potentially an historic event in progress. For someone like me, the idea of warding off the press does not sound like a situation I would enjoy and that is the main reason why I have decided not to make any bids yet. I might have been swayed to bid, but your changing the terms of the auction mid-term only served to reinforce the decision to stay out of the auction.


I think the assertion that people are spamming your auction thread is arguable. People exercise due diligence when spending significant sums of their money or taking on a potentially large liability. If you ever hope to sell this house, it might be worth engaging with your potential customers more amicably.

Unilaterally changing the rules of this auction only destroys your credibility and trustworthiness and makes it all the more difficult to sell the house in the long run, unless, of course, you have discussed and agreed upon this change of terms with miernik, your current high bidder.

nice house. too bad village looks like tote hosen stadt, population count decreasing in past years.
but watching the auction thread (the new one) closely to bid if the price is right.

mind to update the rules that a new valid bid extends the deadline by 10 minutes?
edit: rules are fine, you kinda thought of that

Hi Jobe,

thanks for the ideas. I think though, that the escrow idea where a buyer simply sends the funds to someone trusted and they impart the funds to me upon receipt of the all funds paid certificate is probably going to work.

Plus, the benefit of this being a house sale? If someone trys to screw us....I eh....know where they live.....

Dear OP (Bitcoin Bob),

I've been reading through this very interesting thread, and applaud you and your girlfriend.

BUT ... it all seems very backwards ... in my minds eye its YOU that should be demanding escrow ...

Escrow isn't just a protection for the buyer, its also for the seller. And in a house sale, as you've rightly pointed out, the lawyer acts as the escrow for the sale and signatures, etc. That is perfectly fine for the buyer (its a bit confusing that others don't see this, but I guess they're not used to dealing with lawyers or issues like this).

My concern is yourself and your girlfriend. How are you protecting yourself in this sale? It is a simple case for a seller to say they sent the money and then state that you must have transferred the money away already, but they DID in fact pay you (not). But they have the signed documents, etc, and will have the house..

Might I suggest the following (assuming no escrow to protect yourself):

1. Get the buyer to state the address of the wallet they'll be paying from.
2. Make sure the btc is there and make the buyer aware you're checking.
2a. Make the buyer send you 1 Satoshi to confirm its their wallet (0.0000001 btc in case you didn't know)
3. State the address of the wallet that they need to pay into.
4. And make this all very clear on paper, possibly drawing up a tiny contract to highlight such points.
5. Upon payment, check wallet, etc, the buyer now can't 'pretend' they've paid you, and that you know the money is there.

Make sure you protect yours.

heh, I actually meant reusing this thread, no need to pollute the forum with yet another one. But hey, whatever works...

Agreed, I will do this. This is my first time trying to auction in a forum, so learning fast.....

New post in the auction thread is here:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/bobs-famous-house-in-germany-auction-take-ii-3-days-left-199199

Good luck bidding people!

2 things you need to do to prevent that; consistently up to date original post (so I can quickly see a FAQ with the denkmalschutz status) including auction terms, date and time of end and current highest bid. That and bump your thread with bid acceptance and daily time to end warnings.

because there is so much thread people are not reading the entire post before bidding, and it is confusing some people. Hence the reason I've been asked about denkmalschutz 5 times.

Bidding 44.444 BTC.

+1