McCartney’s Missing Hofner Found…

springhead

I think he’s already paid a reward. And you’re right, it isn’t about money, it’s someone doing the right thing. 

rze99

ElectricXII said:

rze99 said:

loads of detail here from the Hofner man.

https://www.debassist.nl/muzieknieuws/artikel/2-29077/paul-mccartneys-first-hfner-is-back?fbclid=IwAR0_JMzRqUPf0AHdh97kawJsyMxGGGg4hQW9rnzRZLLJKNVpcNBFDZ5QLEw_aem_AeQKTbgxH2gLY3EvUOX9j1K-EIeDax5UCwUP_YSUE686K9sj36gXQfT5R_XjwBqRaSU

Careful with that link guys. I just got this from Avast:

Sorry!

CarbonCopy

Musical_Mystery_Tour said:

TDubs said:

Anyone know where, the people who had it in their loft, would stand legally on it in terms of ownership? Given the length of time they've had it. The BBC article mentions it could be worth millions if sold. 

Depends on if it was put up there while the occupants already had the house, or whether it was in there when they bought the house. If they put it up there themselves, they have no claim to it, if someone else put it there, whilst they don't own it, they do have an option which could gain them remuneration.

Depending on their knowledge, or not, of its provenance, they could in theory be criminally liable (receiving/abetting that sort of thing) if the legal owner decided to pursue that. If however, it was up there when they bought the house, things the seller leaves typically become the new owner's possession if they made no effort to remove it when the exchange took place. However, in this case they couldn't own it; it was stolen. Legally it should never have been there and never legitimately belonged to the seller of the house. But...

Regardless of this, the owners of the house were nevertheless storing the bass and ensuring its safety for many years, and for that service they coud actually charge whatever they liked; as long as the fee wasn't ridiculously unreasonable (for that length of time, a quite large fee would not be unreasonable). If they decided to do that, it'd almost certainly be a case of 'tough shit' for the owner of the bass, they'd have to pay that storage fee. I doubt Paul McCartney would struggle to pay a reasonable storage fee.

Can you reference a statute or any case law about the storage fees please? I find it interesting and would love to know the rationale on how the decision was reached to allow storage charges for unknowingly handling stolen property.