There has to be a limitation on that! What if you had found a lottery ticket?

Check your law. Depending on where you are, he only had a limited time to claim those. But stupid question, how come the landowner knows you sold the coins?

Note to all - If there is any possibility that someone might dispute your good luck or “found money” keep your mouth shut and make sure that anyone knowing about it does that too. Hopefully for you, maybe it’s too late for the property owner to make good the claim… On the other hand, if you find valuables on someone else’s private property - It really doesn’t matter if they are wealthy or not. Had you gone to the property owner first they might have shared an unexpected windfall with you.

If he actually does own it, YDI for treasure hunting on someone elses property. If he does not, FYL for having him screw with you like that.

And today you learned the valuable lesson of knowing when to keep your mouth shut. You find gold anywhere, you dont tell anyone. Not even your parents. You never know when or how that info gets out. I would have just told the parents that I made some sound investment decisions and that's how I got the money. Also, they are suing hou and not your parents, so it's not like they can go after the house or force them to sell. The debt would be on you. Hopefully you have good lawyer that can lay out options if you do lose. Maybe some bankruptcy law or something.

Someone isn't a douche just because they own land. Surely this is easily provable, either he owns the land on which you found them or he doesn't. Just be glad it's not worse, a guy here in the UK is just starting a prison sentence for keeping a couple of coins out of a hoard he found.