Topic: My girlfriends house in Germany - page 9. (Read 18822 times)

That is exactly where a BTC escrow comes in. If you write a cheque you know the money is with you, and the buyer knows they have something to get to the money.

With BTC I can give you my private key but there's no knowing when you move the coins using that key and there is nothing I can do about it. Also, you might close the deal and then I move the coins myself (we both have the private key) and there's nothing you can do about it. With escrow none of us holds the private key, and we both have some recourse if something goes wrong (granted, it depends on how much one can trust the escrow). In the end, escrow service is the cheque in normal currency.

no escrow = scam

Mr Goat,

Please stop trolling me and also sending me hateful messages in my PM box. I don't care if you have a MBA or are a VIP member, again I asked a question and you basically shouted 'Witch' from the gallery. You surely are embarrassing yourself now, either answer my questions about escrow and then let me make my decision or stop bloody harassing me!

It might not be any harder than doing it without Bitcoin. Instead of issuing a cheque in the name of the notary (potential technical troubles, high fees, etc.) or making a wire transfer (assuming notaries work that way in Germany), you will mail in the required secrets. Assuming there is a foolproof way of making it work, that is.


Not only for the future though. I'm also interested in the property, but it would be nice to figure out the way that's most convenient for both buyer and the seller.


I don't think you got what he's saying.

OK just got back to the desk, I see this has become more of a discussion thread than an auction but hey, I will roll with it. It is interesting to hammer this out for people in the future.

Firstly, I never said I WOULD NOT take an escrow. I just raised a bunch of points why, in my opinion that I don't see how we would be protected by it. As I said many times over, this is a house, something with legal land title, not a silk road drug stash or a bitcoin miner. I don't even see how in the world such a scam could be pulled off, as legal title to check is obvious. But Mr. Goat et. al seem to be hell bent on screaming scammer without answering my defenses or even trying to explain how such an escrow would work. To be honest I feel like I am in the salem witch trials here, and every time I open my mouth and say something before I finish my sentence someone is screaming 'WITCH!!!' and when I say well I have a lawyer someone else screams 'WITCHES have lawyers too, burn him!'.

Understand I am a property developer, and have done so in many places including Germany. I am familiar with the process and laws. Hence why my Girlfriend (who is a real estate agent, who I met when purchasing my house ironically) asked me if I could deal with this one, and we decided it would be fun as it didnt cost anything for her, and is not something we would look to develop, to sell it on the bitcoin forum.

I apreciate the dialogue we have going here and all points are valid, but, could some of the champions of escrow please answer my previous questions if they so believe that escrow is a good idea. I'm just not seeing the point to it, but I fail to see how that automatically makes me a scammer, same as I also float when I go in the water and black cats do sometimes cross my shadow, but I fail to see how that makes me a witch.

if OP gives an address nothing would stop you. but i doubt he will give you a tour as he is in Canada.

Possible to visit it?

The seller will know that it's funded before signing, which should suffice. However, either the buyer or the seller could intentionally give a faulty privkey, which could result in funds staying in limbo forever. I'm sure there is a better way of doing this, but I'll have to think about it.

I don't think you need to pay with legal tender, or even pay at all, to switch ownership. One can do whatever they want with their property, and if the seller doesn't appear like she's evading taxes, I don't think anyone will care.

The area looks beautiful.  I hope we see this auction go higher.

I'm not sure if it works similar the U.K. in Germany, but it can potentially be made to work either way. The tricky part is enabling the seller to make sure the coins can't be double spent, while requiring no computer skills from the notary.

I'm sure there is a better way, but off the top of my head, you should be able to do this with a 3-of-4 transaction. The buyer requests two addresses from the seller, and generates two addresses himself. Both the buyer and the seller give one of the private keys to the notary. If the sales succeeds, the notary gives the buyer's key to the seller. If it fails, it gives the seller's key to the buyer so that he can reclaim the sum.

Assuming this is correct in principle, it would be pretty easy to encode into legal speak. However, the notary should be instructed to keep the numbers safe and preserve copies.

Ooops! That's not how you perform an edit 

Edited

Not sure how it works in the US, Chaang Noi but in the UK, we use the lawyers as escrow.

You have a lawyer, they have a lawyer.

The lawyers are the ones who do the exchange.

They're not allowed to defraud otherwise they'd lose their license to practice so yeah, you could opt to have an additional escrow service over and above the lawyers but here there's no point.

Perhaps it works like this in Germany too, hence the lack of desire/need by OP to use escrow.

One of the most interesting threads of the day for me. 

This whole issue of proving a sale is legit, especially one of this value, must be the responsibility of the seller in my opinion.

For this size of purchase bitcoin needs a more efficient and trusted service rather then this forum.  Until then escrow is one of the sellers best tools.  Why on earth if you weren't a legit seller would you refuse? 

Scammers are incredibly crafty these days and 25,000 euros is a nice payday for a couple dudes and one not so elaborate scam.

Not accusing you at all bitcoin_bob but as a community we have to be careful and work together to weed out BS until more trust worthy systems are in place.

Just try selling this market for cash on Craigslist why don't you? 

Haha, neat!

35BTC.

so whats the highest bid right now? I dont get it 

Translation:

Didn't expect the whole paranoia? What will you tell your girlfriend if this goes out for just 40 btc because of that? You have to explain it to the guys slow and clearly, with an address, google maps coordinates and probably with a deed of ownership with names etc blurred out. The guys have been ripped off so often that they simply don't trust anybody an inch, so they demand an unreasonable amount of prove, but you have to be kinda understanding. Just chill.

@Chaang If you have a German lawyer and let him send the amount of the auction to the notary it shouldn't be a problem to do this deal without an escrow.
The only question is: what do you want with a house in the middle of nowhere, it could be a great opportunity, but never forget Germany is a country with many rules, you should check what obligations you have to fulfil: taxes, security, environmental hazards...

Anyway I still like the idea, just make your homework, if youre bidding on this 

A few problems with your idea;

1) we are in Canada, not Germany. So there will be no meeting of us in Germany.
2) there is no legal mechanism of protection for me under German law that i can see, with someone who is not a lawyer/notary holding bitcoins. I need to hand someone a certificate saying 'paid in full' for the property before the signing you are talking off, so that they can show the notary the property is paid.
3) if BTC crashed in the meantime, It could mean a big loss for us. So I would rather conclude this swiftly.
4) with a lawyer guaranteeing the sale, I still don't get what the escrow achieves except opening currency fluctuation risk.....


 h4r13q1n,  mein schatzi sagt, sie versteht Sie Ihre Worte und erzählt mir, halt die Schnauze und ignorieren Arschlöcher! My german is not the best

Chaang Noi......Maybe you don't know what a lawyer is or maybe in Thailand they are all corrupt. I think maybe the deal just is too complex for you. Peace.

Taxes per year are 120 euros. Water and sewer: 55 euros.

Im going to have to drag myself away from the PC for some work now guys, I will answer all other questions later. Please dont hijack the post with tons of the same question differently worded......I would be grateful.