[geeks] geeks Digest, Vol 86, Issue 11

[Mike Meredith]

On Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:20:42 -0500, Lionel Peterson wrote:
> Isn't land ownership a bit 'wonky' by US standards? In the US you

Quite possibly, although most if not all of the weirdest oddities have
been eliminated over time. Copyholdings for example were effectively
land granted to 'commoners' by a lord of a manor in return for a
trivial (and often peculiar) rent; a few of these still remain as
common land. There was even a kind of freehold in Wales where the laws
of inheritance followed the pre-conquest laws of inheritance rather
than the English ones (for example, illegitimate sons were not
excluded).

> buy a house and you own it outright, once all liens are satisfied,
> while in England actual outright ownership of land is a bit rarer,
> most properties being sold for   what amounts to a 99 year lease

Almost all _land_ is sold as a freehold, which will be pretty much as you
would expect in the US, although there may be some differences in
respect of mineral rights.

The situation for houses is effectively the same as that for land.

When it comes to flats (or "ownership" of a section of common
building), you encounter the leasehold which is usually held for 99
years, although 999 years is sometimes used, and I believe some
leaseholds in central London are as short as 25 years.

A leasehold gives you effective ownership over your section of the
building, but you will be expected to pay a 'groundrent' to the
freeholder for occupying his land (usually trivial ... my groundrent is
B#25 per year). Obviously a leasehold can expire, but the rights of
renewal are extensive with the courts getting involved to settle
disputes (usually to set the price at a reasonable level).

I think leaseholds are in a long slow decline because there isn't
enough benefit for the freeholder (except when there are commercial
leases involved :( ), and usually many tedious obligations. It is
becoming usual for new build of flats for the freehold to be given to
the leaseholders in common, and many leaseholders are collecting
together to buy the freehold off the freeholder (leaseholders have
extensive rights over the freehold - a right of first refusal when it is
sold, and rights to buy[*]).

Bear in mind that I'm not a lawyer, although I am an interested party
with reasons to look into this stuff.


*: This sounds kind of unfair to the freeholder, and it probably is. It
   was brought in fairly recently (in terms of laws applying to
   property at least) and is due to the historic abuse of the
   leaseholders rights by the freeholder.




--
Mike Meredith (http://zonky.org/)
  If you play the Windows CD backwards you hear a satanic message.
  But it gets worse... If you play it forwards it installs Windows.