I must admit I'm beginning to look forward to new insights on this thread...
>What generally happens if I find a suitcase full of money and there's no ID
>with it? It's my understanding that, after reasonable efforts to establish
>the true owner (ads in the paper, etc.), if no owner comes forward, the
>money (and suitcase, if I want it) is mine.
This is, at least in Germany, correct. However, it's not up to you to define
what efforts can be considered "reasonable". It's also not up to you to make
these offorts in the first place. There is an institution called "Fundbuero"
in charge of that. There you find people (on the gouvernment's payroll) who
will take care of trying to locate the owner and, if they can't, store the
lost property for a fixed amount of time (which I think is 2 years or so) to
give the owner a chance to claim his property. After that time it's yours.
This is how I once came into possesion of a bicycle that some thief
obviously had abandoned in a forest. Two years later it was mine. Legally.
Frank
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