Laws are not meant to be broken but that doesn’t mean they can’t be bent or twisted a little bit to perfectly fit a given scenario. Seeking out legal loopholes is a big part of a lawyer’s job. They get paid massive amounts of money to use their eagle eyes to find that one tiny clause that’ll make a big difference to their clients’ lives, and often bank accounts.
We’ve heard of billionaires using loopholes to get out of paying taxes, or even criminals exploiting an unexpected loophole to get out of jail free. But there are some perfectly legal ways for ordinary people to beat the system too, as we discovered while reading through an intriguing online thread.
Someone had asked lawyers to share some of the most interesting laws or loopholes they’ve encountered on the job. And legal experts weren’t afraid to speak up. No less than 5,000 comments came pouring in. Some were clever, others absurd and a few were actually entertaining.
Bored Panda has put together a list of the best for you to scroll through before you ever find yourself on the wrong side of the law. We also take a look at some infamous times people have found a loophole and managed to exploit the heck out of it. You’ll find that info between the images.
#1
Lawyer here. Most people don’t know this, but if you have enough money and are white enough, I can get you off of pretty much anything.
#2
You can’t arrest a husband and wife for the same crime.
Image source: anon, cottonbro studio
#3
In Canada it is legal to pirate movies/games/music/apps as long as you don’t make a profit from it.
So if any Canadians here get a letter from their ISP telling them to stop, just ignore it. They can’t do anything in court.
Image source: KingPharaoh, Ron Lach
#4
In Oklahoma, if you are an adopted child, you will be considered an heir of both your adoptive parents AND your biological parents. Double Inheritance!
Image source: gleenglass, Kindel Media
#5
It’s okay to dump DMSO down the drain in our lab as long as you dilute it with water because the law says it has to be under a certain concentration to dump, but you’re still dumping the same amount of DMSO, it’s just not as concentrated.
Image source: itsamiracle, Sandsun
#6
IANAL, but my boss homebrews beer, and he found out that in Texas, if you brew the beer yourself you can legally consume it even if you are underage. You can even buy all the needed equipment while underage too.
Image source: Aperture_Kubi, David McElwee
#7
You can legally marry your first cousin in IL if 1.) Either party is over the age of 55 and 2.) they are sterile with a doctors note stating such.
Image source: JediMasterEvan5, Katelyn MacMillan
#8
If you live in an oil producing state, odds are you don’t own the rights to the oil under your land. However, the person who does own the oil rights is fully entitled to come on your land, set up a drilling rig, lay pipelines, install storage tanks, build a frac water pond, and do basically anything needed to get the oil out of the ground. They don’t need your permission to do this (it is not trespassing). And there is virtually nothing you can do to stop them.
//oil and gas lawyer. Edit: added qualifier.
Image source: putsch80, Strange Happenings
#9
Lawyer here.
If you set off the alarm walking out of a retail store, just keep walking. The store personnel has no right to detain you unless they have an actual basis for doing so (e.g., someone saw you taking stuff off the rack and putting it into your bag).
Absent such cause, touching you could be civil battery, false imprisonment, and a host of other things. Have them call the cops; they’ll say the same thing.
(Edit: This is the *general rule* and may not actually be the law wherever it is that you live and/or shop!).
Image source: compson1, Andrej Lišakov
#10
There is a part of Idaho where you could commit a crime and the government would be constitutionally unable to charge you for it (though there are a bunch of caveats). The general gist of it is that the 6th amendment guarantees a jury consisting of people who live in the district and state that the crime was committed, and no one lives in that district of Idaho due to the fact that it is part of Yellowstone park. Also, I’m not a lawyer, so I probably wouldn’t advise you all to head over there based on what I just said…
Image source: Nope-, Bastian Pudill
#11
I’m not a lawyer but a paralegal in various capacities… you can pretty much claim anything as a work-related injury. If you get carpal tunnel for example, you can also say that your carpal tunnel causes you depression, anxiety and insomnia. If they’re not disputing the carpal tunnel, they probably won’t dispute anything else you add on. If they want to dispute it, they will have to pay for the doctor to prove you don’t have depression/anxiety/insomnia and they would rather just give you the money as part of your settlement.
Also, Wills and Trusts are pretty fun. You can pretty much do whatever you want. It’s like creating a little fantasy world for after you die and everyone will be obligated to honor your wishes the best they can.
Image source: badforbusiness, Antoni Shkraba Studio
#12
Exceeding the posted speed limit in Texas (and a few other states) is not technically a crime… its just *really really* good evidence that you were speeding.
It falls under the umbrella of ‘prima facie’ law, which means on the face of things. Speeding is loosely defined as driving too fast for the given conditions. So if you are going over the posted speed limit but driving “safely” according to a set of standards and conditions, you are not speeding.
Good luck convincing a judge though lol.
Image source: brolix, Andrew Patrick Photo
#13
If you own a company, don’t pay yourself as an employee.. Instead set it up as a corporation and pay yourself dividends.. you pay way less in taxes.
Image source: dirtnaps, Tima Miroshnichenko
#14
At one point, it was almost impossible to get no-fault a divorce, in Canada. A divorce based on adultery is still quicker.
As a result, a married couple would work together so that one of them would be caught having an affair. “We’ll be in this hotel room tomorrow night. Feel free to barge in.”
You’d even see people filing affidavits admitting that they’d banged their tennis pro.
Image source: ClusterMakeLove, freepik
#15
If you own your own business you can buy a large SUV you will get a $25,000 tax CREDIT…yes CREDIT not deduction. So if you think about it, if you buy a SUV and sell it every year, you will make money on it.
If you dont believe me, Google Section 179 deduction.
Image source: UncleDrunkle, Hyundai Motor Group
#16
If you work retail you’re not required to have public restrooms unless the store exceeds a certain size. On the flipside, if you’re a pregnant woman, it’s illegal for any business to deny you a bathroom.
IANAL.
Image source: Joltik
#17
Jury nullification.
A jury chosen by your peers may choose to “nullify” the law even though the evidence proves beyond a reasonable doubt they you are guilty of the charges. They can do this if they disagree with the law or think that rendering a guilty verdict under the circumstances would be unconscionable.
Jury nullification is a constitutional right, but lawyers or the court do not have to instruct jury’s on this right. Most jury’s are not aware of it.
Image source: itsnowornever
#18
In Ohio, you may be convicted of drunk driving (OVI) for operating a bicycle under the influence of alcohol, but NOT for riding a unicycle or tricycle in the same condition. O.R.C. 4511.01(A).
Image source: glider524
#19
When you pay for something with a Visa or Mastercard, if the clerk asks you for your ID you can simply refuse provided the back of your card is signed. No matter what the clerk, supervisor, or manager say, if they want to continue to accept Visa/Mastercard they must abide by the merchant agreement in place.
The merchant agreement specifically states that a signature is all that is required to process the payment, unless the signature doesn’t match the back of the card. They cannot force you to produce your ID no matter what they say about it being their store policy.
Also, they cannot impose a minimum amount for you to use your credit card. Merchants do this to avoid the charge they incur for processing the payment, but they are explicitly not allowed to.
Image source: rarehugs
#20
If you watch someone drown, no liability. If you start trying to save them and give up, you’re potentially liable.
Image source: Kindaclever
#21
Minors _can_ enter into legal contracts, but they can also break them without penalty.
Image source: StabbyPants
#22
I work at a petrol station in the UK. If you fill up your car and walk into the shop without a suitable means of pay ( forgot your cash, card doesn’t work) we will give you an IOU form and you are not legally required to come back and pay the balance. We can send you a maximum of 3 letters and that’s it! It would cost is more for court costs etc to get the cash off you. ( sorry I ain’t pertaining to op’s lawyer answers but I thought you would find this useful).
Image source: jumbobrain
#23
Hm, okay. 544(b) of the Bankruptcy Code allows the trustee–basically a person appointed to look out for creditors–in a bankruptcy case to assert the rights that actual creditors could assert, in order to bring property into the estate. For example, let’s say that you regularly lend money to a dry goods store. In return, you take a lien on their assets. One day, you walk towards the dry goods store, and you are happy. The sun is shining, and bluebirds are chirping in the branches of joyous trees.
But when you enter the store, your face falls. The inventory is there, but the owner is nowhere to be seen! You speak with the man behind the counter, and he tells you that the old owner sold him the store, and its inventory, lock, stock, and barrel. He has skipped town. Later on, you learn that he has filed for bankruptcy, and, naturally, you would like to get your money back. So, you’d like to slap a lien on the inventory of the store, and then sell it off and get your cheddar.
You can do this under non-bankruptcy law, because you are in a jurisdiction where the applicable bulk sale laws state that the seller’s obligations to you follow the inventory he has sold. You are happy to learn that 544(b) of the bankruptcy code allows the trustee in bankruptcy to assert the same right to the goods.
The other creditors are overjoyed to learn that they have received a windfall. As it turns out, the goods have appreciated in value, such that they were worth substantially more than your loan. However, due to a Supreme Court case called *Moore v. Bay*, the balance of the loan will be split with the other creditors proportionately, even though, under non-bankruptcy law, only you could assert the claim against the goods, and you’d only receive compensation to the extent of your interest.
The other creditors are actually ecstatic to hear about you, because they realize that that “person” you made a loan to was actually a corporation. Recently, this corporation reorganized using a leveraged buy-out. Essentially, the corporation took out a loan from a bank, and used the proceeds to buy its own stock. Because this was a transfer not for reasonable value, and because it rendered the company insolvent, this was a fraudulent conveyance, that can be avoided under the Bankruptcy Code Section 548.
Because the trustee can use you to assert this claim under 544(b), the other creditors can now collect the amount of the transfer from the Bank, neatly sidestepping the problem of trying to collect from an insolvent debtor. And all because you decided to loan out some dough for dry goods!
**Tl;dr** don’t go to law school, it is boring.
Image source: anon
#24
In Michigan, if A sues B and secures a judgment for money damages, these are the rules on what B can keep:
(a) All family pictures, all arms and accouterments required by law to be kept by any person, all wearing apparel of every person or family, and provisions and fuel for comfortable subsistence of each householder and his or her family for 6 months.
(b) All household goods, furniture, utensils, books, and appliances, not exceeding in value $1,000.00.
(c) A seat, pew, or slip occupied by the judgment debtor or the judgment debtor’s family in any house or place of public worship, and all cemeteries, tombs, and rights of burial while in use as repositories of the dead of the judgment debtor’s family or kept for burial of the judgment debtor.
(d) To each householder, 10 sheep, 2 cows, 5 swine, 100 hens, 5 roosters, and a sufficient quantity of hay and grain, growing or otherwise, for properly keeping the animals and poultry for 6 months.
(e) The tools, implements, materials, stock, apparatus, team, vehicle, motor vehicle, horses, harness, or other things to enable a person to carry on the profession, trade, occupation, or business in which the person is principally engaged, not exceeding in value $1,000.00.
Image source: meerkat_cousin
#25
When you pay to park somewhere, and they hand you that ticket that says they are not responsible for any damage to your car? That’s a lie. They absolutely are and they just want to scare you off. They took a bailment on your car.
Image source: anon
#26
My brother (a lawyer) told me that you can only be charged with mayhem if your victim loses a body part.
Image source: TexanInExile
#27
Back in my days of habitually roaming the streets drunk, I was arrested under CA penal code 647(f) a couple times, the law against “public drunkenness.”
Being the functional drunk that I was, I took the time to look into the law and learned that to be arrested under 647(f) requires more than just being intoxicated. It also specifies that you must be either unable to care for yourself OR be blocking public access (like a sidewalk or a freeway). They dropped my case both times before going too far, but I was prepared to go to court over it.
Image source: Balclutha
#28
Non-lawyer here. i was arrested and i FOIAed the GPS records for the vehicle used to transport me. police denied request. i appealed to city manager, he upheld the denial because the police GPS records are managed and stored for them by a private company so he doesn’t consider them “public records”. loophole = if you’re the cops and you don’t want the public to be able to access your records, just pay a private company to house them. bingo! not FOIA-able.
Image source: ohiohiohio
#29
You can form a family LLC, keep 1 or 2% voting shares, transfer 99 or 98% non-voting shares, then gift or sell the LLC shares to an irrevocable trust at a substantial discount (up to 35%) with your children as beneficiaries, to leverage your gift tax exemption up to $5M each this year. oh sorry, you said interesting.
Image source: rainbowdim
#30
I got married young so my husband was legal to drink, and I wasn’t. When I did get drunk they tried saying they could charge my husband with contributing to a minor.
His response: “She’s my wife, what am i going to do? Tell her no?”
Since I was technically emancipated because I was married then I was responsible for myself, despite not being 18. They just told me to go sleep it off.
Image source: anon
#31
Germany: If you take something, that’s not yours, with the honest intention to bring it back later, without diminishing its value, it is not stealing and totally legal. With the exception of bicycles, though.
Image source: RichterSkala
#32
In Louisiana, children cannot sue their parents (they have to emancipate themselves first) but parents can sue their children.
I think this has something to do with insurance.
Image source: veyster
#33
At some universities, like the University of Victoria (where I’m from, the parking around campus is surveyed by campus security. If you don’t pay for parking, you get a ticket for “x” amount of cash. If you don’t pay that ticket, what do they do? They freeze your grades and assign you a mark of incomplete. However, if you don’t actually go to the school, there isn’t anything they can do about it!
Image source: Loji
#34
I regularly tell people there is no “magic number” on a DUI charge.
While there is a legal DUI limit (.08 in the states), above which you are automatically considered impaired so long as the reading is considered valid and admissable, most states have laws which allow ANY amount of alcohol in your system to qualify for the charge if the state can show the amount, no matter how low, sufficiently impaired your ability to operate the vehicle.
Here we have DUI (driving under the influence) and DWI (Driving while intoxicated) as, basically, separate laws. The first requires a .08, the second requires a showing you were intoxicated to a point your ability was sufficiently lessened.
Fun fact to throw out at the local bar when someone starts talking about how they had three beers and are below the legal limit, and therefore won’t get a DUI as a result.
Image source: LegalDad
#35
As a lawyer I’m going to give a serious answer, which may not be super-interesting to the layman, but is an example of a true “loophole”.
In Australia (as in most developed countries) we have a set of laws designed to stop company management from improperly fleecing the creditors of limited-liability companies. So, for instance, if your company is going down the tubes and so you decide to simply transfer all of the company’s assets to yourself, or if you keep running up debts you could not possibly pay, then you can be held liable.
In order to be held liable for the above, the company’s liquidator needs to be able to prove that the company was insolvent at the time you engaged in the improper conduct, which necessarily requires analysing the company’s financial records. If the company never kept financial records (which is itself a breach of the law) then insolvency is presumed, to avoid company directors being able to avoid liability in that way.
Now for the loophole: The above presumption only applies if your company did not “keep” or “retain” financial records. However, the instant your company is in liquidation (the equivalent of “bankruptcy” in the USA) a company director ceases to be an agent of the company. So if they take the company’s books and destroy them, then the presumption of insolvency does not apply, since it was not the “company” that destroyed them.
You can be prosecuted for the destruction of the company’s books, but it’s basically a slap on the wrist fine in practice. So long as you can live with that, it means you can get away with virtually any unlawful conduct you engaged in while running the company.
The above may not be something that pops up every day, and it may not make for great party conversation, but it is a rather gaping loophole that makes a huge difference to a director’s responsibility in Australia.
TL;DR – If you are a company director in Australia and you improperly looted your insolvent company, you can get away with it if you destroy the company’s financial records *after* the company goes into bankruptcy.
Image source: iamplasma
#36
This is not intended as legal advice, etc.
I’ve always been a little troubled by location-based federal jurisdiction over state crimes. That is, any ordinary state-level crime (e.g., DUI, indecent exposure… whatever) can be prosecuted at the federal level if the crime is committed on federal property (national park, federal highway, airplane, etc.). This could mean big differences in charges (misdemeanors vs. felonies) and sentencing conditions (including term, parole eligibility, federal vs. state prison, etc.), even if you’re only a few feet over the property line.
Image source: sleepyzootoo
#37
While not really a loophole, checks are fun. You can do all sorts of things with special endorsements… if where ever you write them is dumb enough to take them.
I always like to write stupid things on checks I’m cashing just to see if the tellers will take it rofl. They usually do, but every once in a while I get it sent back with a polite “uhhhhhh, yeah, I can’t take that.”
A guy a while back won a case against Best Buy because they accepted a check that he had endorsed with conditions that essentially said if they mailed him any advertisements (which, duh, of course they will) he can settle for something like $500 a pop LOL. Held up in court, too.
Image source: brolix
#38
Best practical advice? If you get a DUI, refuse the breathlizer. Always refuse it, regardless of state laws, there’s no upside; you can fight the mandatory license suspension at an admin level, and if they get a reading, you are going to have a really hard time beating the charge.
Also, a prosecutor I used to work with said, if you want to get away with a serious crime, its easy:
1) DONT TELL ANYONE. MOST IMPORTANT; 90% of SERIOUS CRIMES ARE ADMITTED TO TO SOMEONE (MOST OFTEN THE POLICE)
2) Don’t use your cell phone in or around the crime
3) Don’t talk to the police (lawyer up, see rule 1) if you become a person of interest
Its really hard to prosecute with no admission, no cell phone records. Eyewitness testimony is not enough typically. Can’t use DNA evidence with out circumstantial evidence.
Image source: anon
#39
This isn’t technically a loophole, but store security has no more power over you than a normal citizen. So if you steal something and the store security tells you to stop, you can just keep right on walking.
Image source: InVultusSolis
#40
If someone steals something from you, you can legally steal it back. I think there are some rules, like you can’t hurt anyone, but you can basically bust on in to someone’s house and steal your stuff back with impunity.
Image source: athennna
#41
Not sure about this one, but I found it fascinating and hilarious. In the UK, a hackney carriage (basically a taxi) is legally required to either carry a bale of hay in the back to feed at least one horse, or at least have the capacity to carry said hay.
Image source: Twistatron
#42
This is in the UK – if you receive a parking fine from a private parking company (at a supermarket or shopping centre for example) don’t pay it. They’re just invoices and practically unenforceable in court. They also can’t charge you more than the loss incurred, which would just be the normal parking fee.
Image source: StainlessSteelRat
#43
At the time you sign a contract, you have no idea what that contract might mean if it ever came time to have a court interpret it. The rules of contract interpretation can change, and often do, and sometimes your contracts are judged from a future perspective.
I always thought this was an incredibly interesting point – your legal rights are not established by the contract you sign based on the prevailing law at the time you sign it, which would seem to make the most sense. Instead, if you sign a contract that obligates you to pay $1.00 in late fees for every minute your payment to the bank is late, and that provision would be enforceable **now, today**, it might not be enforceable tomorrow.
This is a loophole, in a way, because it allows people to avoid contractual obligations that they purposely, intentionally, and voluntarily agreed to, knowing exactly what it meant.
Image source: dweckl
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