6 ms·

Most farms are not owned by farmers, most housing is not owned by tenants, most airplanes are not owned by airlines, etc., etc.. Vertical integration can have

Most farms are not owned by farmers, most housing is not owned by tenants, most airplanes are not owned by airlines, etc., etc.. Vertical integration can have benefits, but it isn't necessary and has drawbacks. Even when vertically integrated, regulations are often written under the assumption that everything is leased, not owned, so compliance is easier if you own a company that owns an asset, instead of owning that asset directly. For example, if two people carpool in a car that one of them owns, instead of hiring a taxi, they'll usually split the costs of the fuel and the wear on the car. On the other hand, if they were flying in a small airplane owned by one of them, it's illegal to split the costs of wear on the airplane, unless its a rental or air taxi. Because of this, and other similar effects of FAA regulations, many small airplane owners own a company that owns the airplane, instead of owning it outright, and rent the airplane from themselves, whenever they use it.

_9ptr 1y ago
If you carpool for money, you're a taxi. And if you take a friend on your plane, and he gives you x€ afterwards for gas money, how is that illegal? I'm sure you're right about the compliance thing in general, but I don't get your example.
- isaacdl 1y ago
  It's actually an FAA regulation. If you are not a licensed commercial pilot, there are extremely strict rules on how and when you can accept ANY money for flying, use of an airplane, etc. Actually, even if you are a licensed commercial pilot, there are still strict rules around payment. You can be paid for your skill as a pilot, but you cannot, e.g. charge for giving rides in your personal airplane.
  - hoistbypetard 1y ago
    > Actually, even if you are a licensed commercial pilot, there are still strict rules around payment. You can be paid for your skill as a pilot, but you cannot, e.g. charge for giving rides in your personal airplane. While that sounds like a bad rule when I first read it, I smell Chesterton's fence here. I'd like to understand why that regulation was written before getting rid of it.
    - isaacdl 1y ago
      It's a safety measure. When it comes to regulating aviation, in general, the FAA is concerned with protecting the public. The "public" doesn't generally have the knowledge to evaluate a pilot, aircraft, or the operation of an aviation venture. So, the FAA puts rules around these things. The private pilot is held to a much lower standard of skill than a commercial or airline pilot. But, that means that the FAA doesn't trust them to fly around the general public. You can take your friend for a spin in your plane if you want, or go screw around and kill yourself, but you cannot "hold out" your operation as an air taxi or airline to the general public, and you can't make money off of it in any situation. A commercial pilot has to undergo much more training in operating an aircraft safely. This means the FAA allows them to get paid to be a pilot - they could be hired to fly someone around in that person's plane. But the commercial license does not really train them in running a safe airline, so the FAA does not allow them to use their own plane to run an airline. EDIT: To word it differently, the opportunity to get paid increases the likelihood that someone will push limits or take unsafe risks. If you aren't under pressure to make your paycheck, you're less likely to take your passengers into marginal weather. (One of the most dangerous occupations in aviation is medivac/aviation EMS. There, the pressure isn't generally monetary but moral: you want to help a sick patient, so you take more risks.)
      - FireBeyond 1y ago
        > If you aren't under pressure to make your paycheck, you're less likely to take your passengers into marginal weather. (One of the most dangerous occupations in aviation is medivac/aviation EMS. There, the pressure isn't generally monetary but moral: you want to help a sick patient, so you take more risks.) Critical care (but not flight) paramedic (though I have transferred patients hundreds of times to them): When we request Heli EMS tht providers are given patient details, but the pilot is strictly given "pickup" and "destination" (they used to be given patient weight, and may still be depending on location and size of helo, but generally not) - the goal being "evaluate safety based on weather conditions only, not a patient condition that tugs the heart strings".
    - mandevil 1y ago
      I'm not totally sure what the GP meant, but I think it has to do with the owning/operating organization of the plane not being a qualified (Part 121/135) company for commercial operations. A grandfather-in-law owned his own small business (a civil engineering firm), and had a plane that he flew to get to meetings/job sites across the Midwest. He could fly company employees just fine- and the company could reimburse him for the flight expense, and since it was not for the public that was fine. He could fly his family or friends on his own dime just fine. But if a family member or friend not working for the company tried to compensate him for the costs, then it is a question of "is his company actually an unlicensed airline?" and now we're getting into territory where it gets complicated. The FAA heavily regulates airlines, which is a major reason they are so safe. But there has to be a lower bound on what gets regulated, and avoiding that is what I think that GP is referencing.
  - ryandrake 1y ago
    There are strict rules, but in general small plane owners who are private, non-commercial pilots may still share operating costs with someone they bring along with them. 61.113(c) permits pilots to share operating expenses of a flight with passengers provided the pilot pays at least his or her pro rata share of the operating expenses of the flight. Operating expenses are limited to fuel, oil, airport expenditures and rental fees.
aeternum 1y ago
Yes, regulation often inadvertently creates both barriers to entry and economies of scale. Government should focus on making it easier for new companies to compete as that is what generally yields better and/or less expensive products.
CGMthrowaway 1y ago
>Most farms are not owned by farmers, most housing is not owned by tenants, most airplanes are not owned by airlines, etc., etc.. Sounds nice but it's not true in the US. A majority (60%) of US land in farms is owner-operated.[1] US homeownership is 65% meaning most housing units are owner-occupied.[2] And 60% of North American airplanes are owner-operated not leased.[3] [1]https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/land-use-land-value-tenure/farmland-ownership-and-tenure https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/land-use-land-v... [2]https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2025/07/28/home-ownership-rate-q2-2025 https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2025/07/2... [3]https://www.iata.org/en/iata-repository/publications/economic-reports/more-aircraft-are-leased-than-owned-by-airlines-globally/ https://www.iata.org/en/iata-repository/publications/economi...
- harmmonica 1y ago
  Not trying to nitpick, but I guess I am. Does "most" really mean 65%? I tend to think most needs to clear a pretty high hurdle. I bring this up not to attack you, but I've noticed this behavior in journalism or when folks are trying to win arguments where instead of quoting the actual number they'll use a term like most, which I don't think has a hard and fast threshold. I guess, for me, most would have to be something north of 80% because it just doesn't feel right to use it below that. 65% would be majority, obviously, maybe significant majority or some such. Anyone else feel this way? Edit: if anyone else reads this, I totally shouldn't have even brought this up. Downvote away, but as other replies have pointed out I missed the definition of "most" when you're comparing numbers against each other.
  - quesera 1y ago
    I do not. For me, "most" is 50% + 1 (Edit: or more).
    - harmmonica 1y ago
      This is interesting. So you're saying that majority and most have the same meaning?
arbor_day 1y ago
Have you seen how expensive a tractor or combine is? The economies of scale are real in farming. You need ~$1M worth of equipment to farm 80 acres (~$1M worth of land), but that same equipment can basically farm 800 acres (~10M worth of land). An equipment issue can destroy a years worth of work with 800 acres (e.g. frost damage from delays), but with 8000 acres you can have spares / avoid the loss with some overtime. Fertilizer and pesticides aren't neatly contained. If you farm different crops than your neighbors, overspray can kill your yield (e.g. weeds spray for corn kills soybeans). Laws around who can grow/spray what and being big helps make that better
- 9rx 1y ago
  > You need ~$1M worth of equipment to farm 80 acres All new? That seems way too low. You'd struggle to get into a combine alone. Used? That seems way too high. I doubt I'd get any more than $300k for my equipment (and that's more than I paid) if I were to sell it today, and it's pretty nice equipment compared to what I see a lot of farmers using. > 80 acres (~$1M worth of land) We always wonder why so cheap? The 18 acres for sale down the road from me wants just about $1M (I expect that will be a hard sell, to be fair). The 130 acres further down the road wants nearly $4M (quite realistic; comparable parcels have sold for more). If you could pick up 80 acres in these parts for $1M, you just won the lottery. And, to be clear, it's not like on the edge of a city or something where other interests are driving up the price. It's just farmland. The yields are respectable, but not quite like Illinois will produce.
  - arbor_day 1y ago
    1M was a nice round number for equipment. I see people without much land buy new equipment all the time, it’s wild! They tend to not stick around long though. You must have better land than we do. Land by me goes for around 14K/ acre. The bigger plots or better land goes higher.
    - 9rx 1y ago
      > You must have better land than we do. It's decent enough, but hardly the best ever known. 200-220bu corn and 50-60bu soybeans would be pretty typical for good ground. Whereas, as I understand it, that is merely average ground in Illinois? But the farmers are really hungry. Case in point: When I was a kid there were eight adjacent farms, including where I grew up, that all had farmers living on them. Of their kids (my generation), there are now 12 of us trying to farm in the same area. That's a 50% increase! As you can imagine, the competition is fierce.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
jancsika 1y ago
> On the other hand, if they were flying in a small airplane owned by one of them, it's illegal to split the costs of wear on the airplane, unless its a rental or air taxi. This isn't true: https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/AC_61-142.pdf https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/... That AC and the regulations cited in it couldn't be clearer-- if you and the pilot are both going to $destination for $reasons, you and the pilot can definitely split the cost of the fuel. Moreover, this is perfectly analogous to the carpooling example as you stated it-- two people both having a stated purpose traveling to a destination, both sharing the cost of gas/wear. There of course could be ways to carpool where the passengers pay the total cost of the driver's gas/wear/etc. You can't do that in your airplane. But again, I think the reasons for this are glaringly obvious-- keep silicon valley from attempting to create an unregulated taxi service in the sky. (In fact, IIRC there was someone who tried over a decade ago-- perhaps these laws are a response to that?) > Because of this, and other similar effects of FAA regulations, many small airplane owners own a company that owns the airplane, instead of owning it outright, and rent the airplane from themselves, whenever they use it. I mean, the pilots I know who do that are either a) multiple people owning a single plane, or b) single owner literally running a rental taxi service. Who isn't covered by those two categories?
- Cyberdogs7 1y ago
  The op clearly stated wear, not fuel. Hourly rates on a plane will have a maintenance reserve, from tens to hundreds of dollars per hour. This cost can not be shared by a pilot. If the plane is owned by an LLC, and rents the plane to the pilot at a rate that includes the maintenance reserve, the cost of the rental CAN be split. So by putting the plane in an LLC, you can legally recoup the true cost from your friends.
- dlcarrier 1y ago
  It's pretty common for a single person to form a trust or LLC to buy an airplane, but it's mostly only worth the cost when the airplane is very expensive or when it's going to be used for commercial activity. I used the only example I could think of, off hand, that applies to non-commercial activity, because it's more relatable. Also, I think it's worth mentioning that the advisory circulars, legal interpretations, and other letters the FAA writes aren't regulations, and it takes a ruling going to a federal court, not an FAA panel or tribunal, to set a precedent for what is and isn't legal. As far as I understand, this has never happened with FAR 61.113, which is a bit self contradictory and the FAA's overly broad definition of compensation where "the building up of flight time may be compensatory in nature if the pilot does not have to pay the costs of operating the aircraft" (https://www.faa.gov/media/15611 https://www.faa.gov/media/15611) is extremely unlikely to ever hold up to a jury.
AnimalMuppet 1y ago
Most housing is not owned by tenants? That surprises me quite a bit. Would you supply a source for that?
- throwmeaway222 1y ago
  tenants by definition don't own it, he was building a false argument
- ItsMonkk 1y ago
  It's impossible to know with the data we collect. Census tracks the homeownership rate, which tracks if the house is owned by someone living in it. However if you are a tenant living in a house that someone else owns and lives in it as well, for example if you are an adult renting in your parents house, that counts as a homeowner owned home. We do not collect the tenant non-ownership rate, but it would be much higher than the inverse of the homeownership rate.
- usrusr 1y ago
  I guess it depends a lot on what you measure in "most": housing per head or housing in square feet? Lots of heads cramped into rented minimum viable housing. Lots of square feet held by owners who occasionally live there, when they do happen to be in town. (the general upwards trajectory of real estate makes it an investment even when it does not generate any income, do much better than owning a boat!)
cco 1y ago
In the US, home ownership rates usually hover around 60%. So most homes are owned by the occupant. I suppose if you want to be pedantic and say mortgaged homes are owned by the bank, sure I guess? But I think homes should not be included in your list here.
- FireBeyond 1y ago
  > I suppose if you want to be pedantic and say mortgaged homes are owned by the bank Well, pedantically, you own the home, but the bank has a lien, and contractual rights in the event of default. But the title is in your name. Contrast to a vehicle, where the lender is the Legal Owner on registration docs, and retains title (in all but two states, I believe).
  - toast0 1y ago
    I've seen vehicle registration documents with an owner and a lienholder. But the lienholder is also in possession of the title (which may be electronic). I see a few more than two states where the owner is in possession of the title, but I haven't lived in any of those. I think the difference is for real estate, title documents and liens are recorded, whereas for vehicles, titles are registered, and possession of the physical title is almost enough to change the registration; it makes sense for the lender to physically hold the title until the loan is satisfied, in order to prevent a sale without paying back the loan.

_9ptr 1y ago

If you carpool for money, you're a taxi. And if you take a friend on your plane, and he gives you x€ afterwards for gas money, how is that illegal? I'm sure you're right about the compliance thing in general, but I don't get your example.

isaacdl 1y ago
It's actually an FAA regulation. If you are not a licensed commercial pilot, there are extremely strict rules on how and when you can accept ANY money for flying, use of an airplane, etc. Actually, even if you are a licensed commercial pilot, there are still strict rules around payment. You can be paid for your skill as a pilot, but you cannot, e.g. charge for giving rides in your personal airplane.
- hoistbypetard 1y ago
  > Actually, even if you are a licensed commercial pilot, there are still strict rules around payment. You can be paid for your skill as a pilot, but you cannot, e.g. charge for giving rides in your personal airplane. While that sounds like a bad rule when I first read it, I smell Chesterton's fence here. I'd like to understand why that regulation was written before getting rid of it.
  - isaacdl 1y ago
    It's a safety measure. When it comes to regulating aviation, in general, the FAA is concerned with protecting the public. The "public" doesn't generally have the knowledge to evaluate a pilot, aircraft, or the operation of an aviation venture. So, the FAA puts rules around these things. The private pilot is held to a much lower standard of skill than a commercial or airline pilot. But, that means that the FAA doesn't trust them to fly around the general public. You can take your friend for a spin in your plane if you want, or go screw around and kill yourself, but you cannot "hold out" your operation as an air taxi or airline to the general public, and you can't make money off of it in any situation. A commercial pilot has to undergo much more training in operating an aircraft safely. This means the FAA allows them to get paid to be a pilot - they could be hired to fly someone around in that person's plane. But the commercial license does not really train them in running a safe airline, so the FAA does not allow them to use their own plane to run an airline. EDIT: To word it differently, the opportunity to get paid increases the likelihood that someone will push limits or take unsafe risks. If you aren't under pressure to make your paycheck, you're less likely to take your passengers into marginal weather. (One of the most dangerous occupations in aviation is medivac/aviation EMS. There, the pressure isn't generally monetary but moral: you want to help a sick patient, so you take more risks.)
    - FireBeyond 1y ago
      > If you aren't under pressure to make your paycheck, you're less likely to take your passengers into marginal weather. (One of the most dangerous occupations in aviation is medivac/aviation EMS. There, the pressure isn't generally monetary but moral: you want to help a sick patient, so you take more risks.) Critical care (but not flight) paramedic (though I have transferred patients hundreds of times to them): When we request Heli EMS tht providers are given patient details, but the pilot is strictly given "pickup" and "destination" (they used to be given patient weight, and may still be depending on location and size of helo, but generally not) - the goal being "evaluate safety based on weather conditions only, not a patient condition that tugs the heart strings".
  - mandevil 1y ago
    I'm not totally sure what the GP meant, but I think it has to do with the owning/operating organization of the plane not being a qualified (Part 121/135) company for commercial operations. A grandfather-in-law owned his own small business (a civil engineering firm), and had a plane that he flew to get to meetings/job sites across the Midwest. He could fly company employees just fine- and the company could reimburse him for the flight expense, and since it was not for the public that was fine. He could fly his family or friends on his own dime just fine. But if a family member or friend not working for the company tried to compensate him for the costs, then it is a question of "is his company actually an unlicensed airline?" and now we're getting into territory where it gets complicated. The FAA heavily regulates airlines, which is a major reason they are so safe. But there has to be a lower bound on what gets regulated, and avoiding that is what I think that GP is referencing.
- ryandrake 1y ago
  There are strict rules, but in general small plane owners who are private, non-commercial pilots may still share operating costs with someone they bring along with them. 61.113(c) permits pilots to share operating expenses of a flight with passengers provided the pilot pays at least his or her pro rata share of the operating expenses of the flight. Operating expenses are limited to fuel, oil, airport expenditures and rental fees.

aeternum 1y ago

Yes, regulation often inadvertently creates both barriers to entry and economies of scale. Government should focus on making it easier for new companies to compete as that is what generally yields better and/or less expensive products.

CGMthrowaway 1y ago

>Most farms are not owned by farmers, most housing is not owned by tenants, most airplanes are not owned by airlines, etc., etc.. Sounds nice but it's not true in the US. A majority (60%) of US land in farms is owner-operated.[1] US homeownership is 65% meaning most housing units are owner-occupied.[2] And 60% of North American airplanes are owner-operated not leased.[3] [1]https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/land-use-land-value-tenure/farmland-ownership-and-tenure https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/land-use-land-v... [2]https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2025/07/28/home-ownership-rate-q2-2025 https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2025/07/2... [3]https://www.iata.org/en/iata-repository/publications/economic-reports/more-aircraft-are-leased-than-owned-by-airlines-globally/ https://www.iata.org/en/iata-repository/publications/economi...

harmmonica 1y ago
Not trying to nitpick, but I guess I am. Does "most" really mean 65%? I tend to think most needs to clear a pretty high hurdle. I bring this up not to attack you, but I've noticed this behavior in journalism or when folks are trying to win arguments where instead of quoting the actual number they'll use a term like most, which I don't think has a hard and fast threshold. I guess, for me, most would have to be something north of 80% because it just doesn't feel right to use it below that. 65% would be majority, obviously, maybe significant majority or some such. Anyone else feel this way? Edit: if anyone else reads this, I totally shouldn't have even brought this up. Downvote away, but as other replies have pointed out I missed the definition of "most" when you're comparing numbers against each other.
- quesera 1y ago
  I do not. For me, "most" is 50% + 1 (Edit: or more).
  - harmmonica 1y ago
    This is interesting. So you're saying that majority and most have the same meaning?

arbor_day 1y ago

Have you seen how expensive a tractor or combine is? The economies of scale are real in farming. You need ~$1M worth of equipment to farm 80 acres (~$1M worth of land), but that same equipment can basically farm 800 acres (~10M worth of land). An equipment issue can destroy a years worth of work with 800 acres (e.g. frost damage from delays), but with 8000 acres you can have spares / avoid the loss with some overtime. Fertilizer and pesticides aren't neatly contained. If you farm different crops than your neighbors, overspray can kill your yield (e.g. weeds spray for corn kills soybeans). Laws around who can grow/spray what and being big helps make that better

9rx 1y ago
> You need ~$1M worth of equipment to farm 80 acres All new? That seems way too low. You'd struggle to get into a combine alone. Used? That seems way too high. I doubt I'd get any more than $300k for my equipment (and that's more than I paid) if I were to sell it today, and it's pretty nice equipment compared to what I see a lot of farmers using. > 80 acres (~$1M worth of land) We always wonder why so cheap? The 18 acres for sale down the road from me wants just about $1M (I expect that will be a hard sell, to be fair). The 130 acres further down the road wants nearly $4M (quite realistic; comparable parcels have sold for more). If you could pick up 80 acres in these parts for $1M, you just won the lottery. And, to be clear, it's not like on the edge of a city or something where other interests are driving up the price. It's just farmland. The yields are respectable, but not quite like Illinois will produce.
- arbor_day 1y ago
  1M was a nice round number for equipment. I see people without much land buy new equipment all the time, it’s wild! They tend to not stick around long though. You must have better land than we do. Land by me goes for around 14K/ acre. The bigger plots or better land goes higher.
  - 9rx 1y ago
    > You must have better land than we do. It's decent enough, but hardly the best ever known. 200-220bu corn and 50-60bu soybeans would be pretty typical for good ground. Whereas, as I understand it, that is merely average ground in Illinois? But the farmers are really hungry. Case in point: When I was a kid there were eight adjacent farms, including where I grew up, that all had farmers living on them. Of their kids (my generation), there are now 12 of us trying to farm in the same area. That's a 50% increase! As you can imagine, the competition is fierce.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

jancsika 1y ago

> On the other hand, if they were flying in a small airplane owned by one of them, it's illegal to split the costs of wear on the airplane, unless its a rental or air taxi. This isn't true: https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/AC_61-142.pdf https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/... That AC and the regulations cited in it couldn't be clearer-- if you and the pilot are both going to $destination for $reasons, you and the pilot can definitely split the cost of the fuel. Moreover, this is perfectly analogous to the carpooling example as you stated it-- two people both having a stated purpose traveling to a destination, both sharing the cost of gas/wear. There of course could be ways to carpool where the passengers pay the total cost of the driver's gas/wear/etc. You can't do that in your airplane. But again, I think the reasons for this are glaringly obvious-- keep silicon valley from attempting to create an unregulated taxi service in the sky. (In fact, IIRC there was someone who tried over a decade ago-- perhaps these laws are a response to that?) > Because of this, and other similar effects of FAA regulations, many small airplane owners own a company that owns the airplane, instead of owning it outright, and rent the airplane from themselves, whenever they use it. I mean, the pilots I know who do that are either a) multiple people owning a single plane, or b) single owner literally running a rental taxi service. Who isn't covered by those two categories?

Cyberdogs7 1y ago
The op clearly stated wear, not fuel. Hourly rates on a plane will have a maintenance reserve, from tens to hundreds of dollars per hour. This cost can not be shared by a pilot. If the plane is owned by an LLC, and rents the plane to the pilot at a rate that includes the maintenance reserve, the cost of the rental CAN be split. So by putting the plane in an LLC, you can legally recoup the true cost from your friends.
dlcarrier 1y ago
It's pretty common for a single person to form a trust or LLC to buy an airplane, but it's mostly only worth the cost when the airplane is very expensive or when it's going to be used for commercial activity. I used the only example I could think of, off hand, that applies to non-commercial activity, because it's more relatable. Also, I think it's worth mentioning that the advisory circulars, legal interpretations, and other letters the FAA writes aren't regulations, and it takes a ruling going to a federal court, not an FAA panel or tribunal, to set a precedent for what is and isn't legal. As far as I understand, this has never happened with FAR 61.113, which is a bit self contradictory and the FAA's overly broad definition of compensation where "the building up of flight time may be compensatory in nature if the pilot does not have to pay the costs of operating the aircraft" (https://www.faa.gov/media/15611 https://www.faa.gov/media/15611) is extremely unlikely to ever hold up to a jury.

AnimalMuppet 1y ago

Most housing is not owned by tenants? That surprises me quite a bit. Would you supply a source for that?

throwmeaway222 1y ago
tenants by definition don't own it, he was building a false argument
ItsMonkk 1y ago
It's impossible to know with the data we collect. Census tracks the homeownership rate, which tracks if the house is owned by someone living in it. However if you are a tenant living in a house that someone else owns and lives in it as well, for example if you are an adult renting in your parents house, that counts as a homeowner owned home. We do not collect the tenant non-ownership rate, but it would be much higher than the inverse of the homeownership rate.
usrusr 1y ago
I guess it depends a lot on what you measure in "most": housing per head or housing in square feet? Lots of heads cramped into rented minimum viable housing. Lots of square feet held by owners who occasionally live there, when they do happen to be in town. (the general upwards trajectory of real estate makes it an investment even when it does not generate any income, do much better than owning a boat!)

cco 1y ago

In the US, home ownership rates usually hover around 60%. So most homes are owned by the occupant. I suppose if you want to be pedantic and say mortgaged homes are owned by the bank, sure I guess? But I think homes should not be included in your list here.

FireBeyond 1y ago
> I suppose if you want to be pedantic and say mortgaged homes are owned by the bank Well, pedantically, you own the home, but the bank has a lien, and contractual rights in the event of default. But the title is in your name. Contrast to a vehicle, where the lender is the Legal Owner on registration docs, and retains title (in all but two states, I believe).
- toast0 1y ago
  I've seen vehicle registration documents with an owner and a lienholder. But the lienholder is also in possession of the title (which may be electronic). I see a few more than two states where the owner is in possession of the title, but I haven't lived in any of those. I think the difference is for real estate, title documents and liens are recorded, whereas for vehicles, titles are registered, and possession of the physical title is almost enough to change the registration; it makes sense for the lender to physically hold the title until the loan is satisfied, in order to prevent a sale without paying back the loan.