Buried Within (Lockwood & Co Fanfic)

Legalities

"Would it even be legal?"

"What?" Lockwood turned his head from where he was slowly pushing one of the items on the mantle in the front foyer back, having noticed yet another item out of place because Ms. Pascal kept moving various items to where she thought they would be better suited.

"She's going to drive you crazy," George said, spouting rubber gloves on his hands along with an apron. "With how many times she's moving things. And she doesn't just move something once, I've noticed."

Lockwood nodded his head to George and his current getup. "It seems she's already driving you up the wall. Otherwise, you wouldn't be spring cleaning when it's not spring, if you know what I mean."

"I find cleaning to be lethargic," George said, pushing up his eyeglasses. "You should find yourself a hobby, although really, you should be trying to find us an actual client who we know is going to pay."

"She's a potential client," Lockwood said.

"Yes, but some of this effort you're spending trying to woo a potential client could be actually finding an actual client, Lockwood." George frowned. "A client we don't even know if it would be legal to take on."

"Ah," Lockwood said. "That's what you meant by asking if it would be legal to take on. What is your train of thought."

"Does the potential client even own the property?"

Lockwood stared, then took a deep breath. "I honestly hadn't thought about that."

"Of course, I own the property!" their client said, having appeared from nowhere, although there weren't really many places she could go, mainly since they made it quite clear that the basement area was off-limits to non-agents. Ms. Pascal puffed out her chest. "I have a deed to the property. It's in my name."

"Yes. But are you sure?" George said.

"What do you mean?" Ms. Pascal said, becoming alarmed at what he said, while Lockwood gave George a look for having said the wrong thing, even though he was thinking along the same lines now.

"But you've already been scammed into buying a house with a body in the wall? They had to have known about the ghost problem before selling it, but what if the scam goes further in trying to get us to clean up their property by getting someone who thinks that they own the property to hire one of our smaller agencies to take care of the problem, thus screwing not only you over, but us as well."

"I don't follow. If you solve the problem, how do you get screwed over?"

"Paperwork," Lockwood frowned. "A client can turn around and say, hey, 'turns out I didn't legally own the property, so I don't have to pay you' and then refuse to pay."

"Is that even legal?" Ms. Pascal said. "And why would anybody regal on a contract."

"Because they're in on it?" George said, pushing up his glasses with his rubber-covered hands while Lockwood looked at him, shaking his head at George's slip of the tongue, completely expecting it when—

"I am not in on it!"

"We know you're not," Lockwood said, taking a deep breath and giving George a look that said he'd slipped with his tongue.

"Oh. Yeah. We don't think that," George said. "I'm talking about how theoretically it could happen, that a lot of the times the person they supposedly sold the property to is in on the scam because you can sell a property for more money if there is no ghost there. But even then, even if a person isn't in on it, they may want to engage as they're already out of the money because of the property, and the agency is, in turn, another loss of money."

"And yes, there are adults who would renege on a contract using the fact they didn't own the property, and the courts are likely to side with them, or a small agency can't fight them."

"Not to mention," George said, "We've had adults screw us over, not be truthful on the contract, and we had to bear the brunt of it." He then turned and glared at Lockwood. "Although..."

"I know. I know. Had we let you do your research, had I let you have your time to do your research, we would have known the customer lied about the difficulty of the ghost we were dealing with," Lockwood said, sighing. "Doesn't change the fact they lied and were able to get away with it."

"But what does this have to do with my situation?"

"Do you actually own the place, or is that a part of the scam?" George asked.

"I know that I own the property. I have the deed," Ms. Pascal said. She turned and left the room, which resulted in Lockwood and George looking at each other before turning their heads to look at the door. She didn't return until later, as if she'd lost focus again with a piece of paper holding it out. "Here. See for yourself."

George reached out and took the paper, frowning as he pushed up his glasses. "Is this real?"

"Of course, it's real," Ms. Pascal said, but then she frowned. "At least, I think it's real."

"Uh, huh," George said, frowning. "So, I don't know enough about this to tell if the paperwork is real."

"We could go and get it checked out," Lockwood said. He took a deep breath. "Actually, you should get it checked out."

"Then I'm coming with you. I'll drive."

George opened his mouth while Lockwood frowned. It then closed as Ms. Pascal headed out the front door. "So, do you think she has an actual driver's license?"

"I'm sure she's not that loony," Lockwood said. "And I'm sure there's a reason why she's the way she is."

"Do you appreciate my method of getting the address out of her?"

"I think Lucy, even Ms. Pascal's daughter, might be miffed at us for wasting their time," Lockwood said.

"Yes, but we're wasting our time waiting for an answer, and we need the money," George said, heading to the kitchen as he pulled off the gloves and returned with the rubber gloves and apron missing. "Well, let's see how badly this realistic agent has screwed over our client. I mean, potential client."

Lockwood sighed. "I know, I know. Having this still be at potential instead of an actual client is frustrating. And will we be stuck in long lines waiting for information?"

"Don't know. This isn't my strong point," George said, pushing up his glasses as they headed to the front door. They got into the backseat while George's mouth twisted and Lockwood closed his eyes, only for Ms. Pascal to start driving in a way that made George reach out to grab the front seat and Lockwood's eyes snap open, yet the rest of the drive went smoothly.

There were also no lines at the building that held the information on who owned a particular building, but there was a sigh of relief from Ms. Pascal when she confirmed that, yes, she did own the property, but—

"There's paperwork to transfer the deed again." George leaned forward, frowning.

"The signature is a match to this one."

Lockwood leaned over, taking a deep breath. "Yeah. No. Even I can tell that signature's been copied. It's too clean of a copy." He poked his finger at the signature. "See here."

"Oh," the woman said. "Let me get my manager."

Ms. Pascal frowned. "Wait. I don't want the police involved."

George turned to look at her. "If you don't get the police involved, Ms. Pascal, you'll lose your home. Thus you'll lose the money you've invested into that property already."

"Yes, yes," Ms. Pascal sighed. "It looks like I have no choice."

"You know, why don't I contact someone I know? Someone who might be of help?" Lockwood said, amused because he'd just spoken with that person earlier. "Pays to no people, doesn't it?"

"Yeah. Someone who gets on us for utilizing loopholes and such," George said. "I know you're contacting them.

"Yeah, but having them involved is better than them not," Lockwood said. "And we might actually get some information out of this.