Posted on 11/11/2008 12:13:50 PM PST by BenLurkin
Good question. I don’t know at all, but it seems like you ought to, at least in theory.
Why was the contractor even "due" any money?
You’ve found the way to beat the system. :-)
Unless you have visited Cleveland, this kind of stupidity is not known in other locations.
$60,000 stolen....yeh right...
Did this woman buy the house from the original owner and there were no other owners in between? If not, how do you determine who the heirs are?
Years ago my late father in law was in Cleveland helping remodel the house of Dr. Bob, co-founder of AA. He found a half pint of Dr. Bob’s whiskey hidden in the wall.
Wonder if any of them were silver certificates, especially the older ones which might be worth quite a bit.
Lew
182K during the Depression would be the equivalent to several million dollars today. Back in those days you could buy a nice house for 5k. I wonder where all that loot came from? One has to suspect it may have been illegal. Bootlegging, perhaps?
Why couldn’t they just split the money 50/50? Without telling a soul. I would have gave the contractor half and have him sign a notarized agreement that he’ll keep his mouth shut about it. Then I would have quietly cashed in my half.
But they also have bullion value which paper money does not.
Greedheads.
I don’t recall. I can’t remember the details of this story (because they found the money maybe a year ago), but it made the newspapers and it was pretty clear who hid the money. I can’t right now remember why, but I don’t think there was much doubt.
Ok, I just looked up some more details of the story, and here’s the deal: the house, during the depression, belonged to a wealthy Cleveland businessman by the name of Patrick Dunne. At that time, Cleveland was an important city and there were a lot of wealthy people there.
The envelopes that were found were marked with a return address of “P. Dunne News Agency.”
Notably, here’s how the court case turned out:
The contractor received 13.5% of the money, the 21 heirs of Dunne received the balance of the remaining money that wasn’t spent (or lost) by the homeowner. The homeowner didn’t receive any of the treasure trove.
In addition to the treasure trove, there was an additional $25,000 in money that the judge ruled should be split between the homeowner and the finder, but further ruled that the homeowner abandoned her claim to the money and that the contractor-finder should receive it all.
The homeowner is a mortgage broker. For what it is worth, she is bankrupt, she claims, because several of her properties tanked after the real estate bubble burst.
Thanks. That’s good stuff to know. Although I don’t think I’m ever going to find a treasure trove.
I once found a wedding ring in my old house, built in the 30’s. I would have returned it if I ever knew which previous owner it belonged to or how to get in touch with them.
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