4 ms·

As for the 'British' Crown, if my memory serves me right the Domesday book records that William the Conq. did a 50/40/10 land split with the Church and his nobl

by lurcio 9y ago

As for the 'British' Crown, if my memory serves me right the Domesday book records that William the Conq. did a 50/40/10 land split with the Church and his nobles. (To this day a significant percentage of land is not even recorded in the land registry. We might assume this is held in perpetuity without falling under inheritance laws. Everyone else is to this day a tenant on the land). It would have been more than prodigal to lose when the system is in your hands... Daniel 4 is interesting in this regard: "This matter is by the decree of the watchers, and the demand by the word of the holy ones: to the intent that the living may know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men." Bless them!

pmyteh 9y ago
That land is not registered in the Land Registry doesn't necessarily mean that it's held in some kind of perpetual corporation. Compulsory registration on sale was phased in after 1925 and, IIRC, you weren't obliged to register land if it passed by inheritance or gift until very recently. That doesn't mean that inheritance taxes weren't paid. It's not uncommon to come across unregistered parcels of land in conveyancing even now; they're simply registered when it becomes necessary.
- tryingagainbro 9y ago
  they're simply registered when it becomes necessary. How can you prove it's yours? or if someone challenges it, you register it? This is weird, especially in a country with 1000+ years legal tradition. One would assume that everything is registered, with the state owning the rest that is not assigned to private parties. In many third world countries it's common for people to work /live on the land that "everyone" knows it's theirs--via family line--but can't prove /register it legally (whatever the law is.)
  - pjc50 9y ago
    It is basically broken, yes, and we should have a proper cadasteral mapping system that makes it straightforward to determine the ownership of a piece of land, combined with actual land-based taxation rather than the odd patchwork of "rates". There are some excellent books by Hernando de Soto on the subject of trying to turn informal claims of inherited land in the third world into proper usable claims.
  - pmyteh 9y ago
    > How can you prove it's yours? or if someone challenges it, you register it? For an unregistered plot, in theory you demonstrate ownership by providing a series of valid conveyancing deeds back to a valid original grant. If they're lost, flawed, or destroyed in a fire, things can get messy. The Land Registry's guide to handling first registration in situations where the deeds are missing is a good example: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/first-registration-of-title-where-deeds-have-been-lost-or-destroyed/practice-guide-2-first-registration-of-title-if-deeds-are-lost-or-destroyed https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/first-registratio... In practice, if you've occupied the land continuously for a long period of time then you can have possessory rights in the land even in the absence of a good chain of title. You're right that this is all pretty unsatisfactory, which is why the Land Registry was set up in 1925 and registration made increasingly-more-compulsory since then. But as pjc50 notes, we don't have a full cadastre, so we are where we are. Interestingly Scotland had a registration system (of conveyances rather than of land per se) much earlier. So even within the UK we're not without precedents.
    - mcguire 9y ago
      "If they're lost, flawed, or destroyed in a fire, things can get messy." This was a reasonably common occurrence in the American west. In particular, I believe that's how most of the possessors of Spanish land grants in New Mexico were dispossessed.

by lurcio 9y ago

pmyteh 9y ago

That land is not registered in the Land Registry doesn't necessarily mean that it's held in some kind of perpetual corporation. Compulsory registration on sale was phased in after 1925 and, IIRC, you weren't obliged to register land if it passed by inheritance or gift until very recently. That doesn't mean that inheritance taxes weren't paid. It's not uncommon to come across unregistered parcels of land in conveyancing even now; they're simply registered when it becomes necessary.

tryingagainbro 9y ago
they're simply registered when it becomes necessary. How can you prove it's yours? or if someone challenges it, you register it? This is weird, especially in a country with 1000+ years legal tradition. One would assume that everything is registered, with the state owning the rest that is not assigned to private parties. In many third world countries it's common for people to work /live on the land that "everyone" knows it's theirs--via family line--but can't prove /register it legally (whatever the law is.)
- pjc50 9y ago
  It is basically broken, yes, and we should have a proper cadasteral mapping system that makes it straightforward to determine the ownership of a piece of land, combined with actual land-based taxation rather than the odd patchwork of "rates". There are some excellent books by Hernando de Soto on the subject of trying to turn informal claims of inherited land in the third world into proper usable claims.
- pmyteh 9y ago
  > How can you prove it's yours? or if someone challenges it, you register it? For an unregistered plot, in theory you demonstrate ownership by providing a series of valid conveyancing deeds back to a valid original grant. If they're lost, flawed, or destroyed in a fire, things can get messy. The Land Registry's guide to handling first registration in situations where the deeds are missing is a good example: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/first-registration-of-title-where-deeds-have-been-lost-or-destroyed/practice-guide-2-first-registration-of-title-if-deeds-are-lost-or-destroyed https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/first-registratio... In practice, if you've occupied the land continuously for a long period of time then you can have possessory rights in the land even in the absence of a good chain of title. You're right that this is all pretty unsatisfactory, which is why the Land Registry was set up in 1925 and registration made increasingly-more-compulsory since then. But as pjc50 notes, we don't have a full cadastre, so we are where we are. Interestingly Scotland had a registration system (of conveyances rather than of land per se) much earlier. So even within the UK we're not without precedents.
  - mcguire 9y ago
    "If they're lost, flawed, or destroyed in a fire, things can get messy." This was a reasonably common occurrence in the American west. In particular, I believe that's how most of the possessors of Spanish land grants in New Mexico were dispossessed.