"With the new patch, items taken from a container by the companion (even a container you own) will be labeled as stolen when you take the items from the companion."- The Elder Scrolls Wiki

I noticed this for the first time last night after a cave exploration and I was trying to sell items that I looted that were NOT stolen, but I was over my carry weight, so I put the items in a chest for my pack mule to carry out. I got to the merchant to sell said items and took them from my follower and noticed that they were not in my inventory. I have been playing TES games for years, so I realized that they must be flagged as stolen. I took the items home and placed them in my storage chest, then checked the items and saw that, indeed, they were marked as stolen.
My question, if anyone can answer, is why is this? This forces me to sell said items to a fence instead of a regular merchant. I am a member of the Thieves Guild, but what if I had not joined or wanted to be a member. A matter of principal, if you will. Why are the items marked as stolen, when they are clearly not stolen?

Possibly as a way to circumvent people circumventing the carry limit by making their pack mule carry way more than normal?

Though I have noticed a lot of the "bug fixes" are keyed more towards glitches that are useful rather than glitches that break quests for some reason.

Can companions take from your chests?
That's a bit inconvenient on its own.

Or am I misunderstanding? Do they have to be following you? Because some of my houses have like 4 NPC's walking around, I don't want them taking my crap.

You can tell them to. I don't think they do it on their own.

Ah. I don't really utilize the full breadth of companion complexity.

I want my New Vegas wheel back

Is that how I got that stolen sword? I never steal and there's a big fat zero in my stats for items stolen but I have a sword that's red in a cupboard. There's plenty of other loot in the game so it'll just stay in the cupboard. Thanks for pointing this out.

dropping item inside other ppl house/zone, and ask your follower pick them up, also can lead to stolen tag.
i believe it happened in your own house too.

i only do this drop and pickup in outside/open-air area.

Pickpocket something from a bandit, and it'll be flagged as stolen. Chop his head off with a blunt instrument and you can strip him bare and it's all yours. Go figure.

When moving some of my item's from Breezehome to Honeyside I asked Lydia to pick up some Items, they are now listed as stolen. Not that I had planned to sell them, but still. Book's, Dragon claws and my butterfly in a jar.

Wow, now that sounds like a big fat bug instead of a "patch"...

I made a similar post before Agrona gave me a link to this one. Here is what I said on my post.


Am I the only one who is having a problem with items I have looted (not stolen) later being marked as stolen? It usually happens after I have used my blacksmithing skills to upgrade them. Of course, once they are marked stolen they cannot be sold. For instance, I had Lydia carrying some steel swords for me. When I got to the Warmaiden I took them back from her. They did not show as stolen. I bought steel ingots from the Warmaiden to work on at the blacksmith area to improve them. I did the upgrade on them and then went back in to the Warmaiden and tried to sell the swords. I could only sell a couple of them, because the other three were now showing as stolen!! I have probably 50 or 60 weapons stored in my home, Breezehome, that I cannot sell because suddenly they are shown as stolen. I have not been stealing, just looting the people I have killed, which is normal, not theft!!

I especially noticed it happening after smithing an item. In fact, I have even made Banded Armor, and improved it, and then it shows at stolen. How does something I created and then took two steps from the forge, to the workbench to improve suddenly become stolen property!!!

One thing that doesnt make sense is does anyone know there stolen? If some saw u steal... Kill them and no witnesses and then u should be able to sell ur stolen goods... The current setup us not realistic.

I've heard that you can drop things outside near an NPC and sometimes they'll pick them up and give them back to you or say something like, "Did you drop that?" and this will clear the stolen tag. I've dinked around with it a little, but no NPC has reacted that way. The people could've been joking in the thread though. Granted this isn't an ideal method if you have a lot of "stolen" items, but maybe it's better than nothing?

It was very annoying so I searched for it on the wiki, and was surprised that this happened after the 1.4 patch. Gee, thanks. Bethesda....