Man shows how he profited from stealing house without facing charges
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A man explained how he stole a house from a homeowner in Portland, Ore., was taken to court, and was later paid to leave the dwelling.
George McCleary, a real estate investor and developer, shared his TikTok on X and captioned the video, “I totally stole a house. A nice one! It’s grand larceny, unless it’s a house in Portland. Then it’s a civil matter, not even a crime.”
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The video was shared on multiple X accounts and has been viewed more than 6 million times.
McCleary took viewers step by step on how he got a free house in Portland, “and how you can, too.”
He found a vacant house someone was trying to rent out and learned how to break into a lock box.
“Next, I forged some documents,” McCleary detailed. “This made it look like I had a lease agreement, [I] called the utility companies and had the utilities put in my name.”
He added: “I’m not going to pay them, but they don’t know that.”
When the homeowner eventually showed up, he “politely” told her that “this is my house now” and she needed to leave.
Cops were called, but after he showed them his forged lease agreement and the utility bills, they advised the homeowner to sue because it was a civil matter.
The homeowner hired an attorney and tried to get him evicted, while McCleary claimed to have reached out to a tenant advocacy group who found him a lawyer “that’s 100% free and funded by taxpayers.”
He noted: “So my out-of-pocket is still zero dollars.”
The homeowner spent “tens of thousands of dollars” on the legal battle before she had enough.
“Finally, the owner decided it would be cheaper to just give me a chunk of cash to leave rather than continue to pay for the lawyer,” he said.
“So she writes me a cheque for $10K and I move out.”
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McCleary summed up: “So I just got nine months of free rent and a house that otherwise would have cost me $3,000 a month, plus a nice cash-for-keys cheque. And I wasn’t even charged with anything!”
He added: “I always thought that stealing was wrong but turns out, if you steal a house, it’s not even against the law here. So this couldn’t have worked out any better. Thanks, Portland!”
While some people thought the video was a joke, others doubted McCleary actually did all the unsavoury things and was merely mocking Portland’s legal system.
Either way, the video was effective.
“I don’t believe he personally did any of this, but everything he said is technically valid,” one person commented.
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