False Pretenses in South Carolina – SeiferFlatow, PLLC

South Carolina law treats wrongfully attaining home from a further particular person, or theft, as a criminal offense. Theft can materialize in a amount of methods, which includes fraud or larceny. Identical to both of those these crimes is the theft crime of “false pretenses,” which is from time to time described as a combination of fraud and larceny for the reason that it entails both of those deception and deliberately depriving somebody of their very own home.

Even though a non-violent crime, phony pretenses, or “obtaining home beneath wrong pretenses” as it’s also called, is a critical subject in South Carolina and can be billed as either a misdemeanor or felony, based on the instances of the crime. Irrespective of the classification of the rates, an accusation of theft by bogus pretenses can have a large effect on your life.

Go through on to study additional about what constitutes a untrue pretenses cost and the repercussions you could deal with if identified guilty.

As laid out in South Carolina Standard Code Portion 16-13-240, it is a crime to acquire a signature, funds, or property from somebody less than fake pretenses or misrepresentation of a point with “intent to cheat and defraud a man or woman of that assets.” Basically place, if you receive dollars, home, or the title to residence from somebody else by lying to them or knowingly producing misrepresentations of a reality with the intention of cheating them out of their income or residence, you have attained their funds or home below bogus pretenses. The assets in concern can be possibly tangible or intangible. 

An case in point of acquiring property under fake pretenses would be convincing your neighbor to sell you their motor vehicle, obtaining them sign around the title to the motor vehicle, but obtaining no intention of having to pay the promised amount.

An additional example would be if your friend experienced a collector’s item that you preferred, and you certain them the item was worthless and to sell it to you since of that “fact” for $10, but you knew the product was definitely well worth $500.  You would have obtained the item underneath untrue pretenses. 

The rates and punishments for fake pretenses count on the benefit of the house that was falsely acquired: 

• If the house that was falsely attained is valued at beneath $2,000, _ is charged as a misdemeanor and experimented with in magistrates court docket. A conviction is punishable by both a fine of up to $1,000 or up to 30 days in jail. 
• If the property that was falsely attained is valued at more than $2,000 but much less than $10,000, a wrong pretenses demand is classified as a felony and a conviction is punishable by a wonderful in an amount that is at the discretion of the court or a prison sentence of no more than five years.
• If the house that was falsely obtained is valued at a lot more than $10,000, a fake pretenses demand is categorized as a felony and a conviction is punishable by a wonderful of no a lot more than $500 or a prison sentence of no extra than 10 several years. 

It really should be mentioned that in get for charges of obtaining property by phony pretenses to be offered, the perpetrator ought to get the title to the property in query from the authentic owner, not just choose possession of the residence itself. One more vital aspect that a prosecutor will have to set up in a fake pretenses cost is an intent to defraud or cheat somebody out of their assets.

Getting accused of obtaining residence beneath bogus pretenses can have a key affect on your existence. At SeiferFlatow, our legal defense crew appreciates that you are innocent right until confirmed responsible, and we will do the job tough to put alongside one another a protection tactic that benefits in the ideal achievable consequence for you. Get hold of our South Carolina place of work right now to agenda a session.