[Vwoolf] The Ramsays in Skye - owning or renting?

[Stuart N. Clarke]

That is correct.  
Not long before I bought my flat in London in the last century, the tenants (in my block of 185 flats) bought the freehold.  (Not sure if I’ve got all this 100% correct.)  Of course, they couldn’t share the freehold in 185 parts, so a co. was set up, in which the tenants have the shares (some flats are bigger than others – is that relevant?).  And the co. has given us all 999-year leases.  Now some (a very few) tenants didn’t want to buy their share of the freehold, so their flats belong to the co., and, as the leases fall in, we can sell the flats for whatever we can get (leasehold, of course).  I can’t remember where the money goes; I never see any.  I hope this is clear.
However, the “Ground Rent Scandal” only started this century:
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/jul/25/leasehold-houses-and-the-ground-rent-scandal-all-you-need-to-know
It is a scandal that people don’t understand simple math(s).
Stuart
From: Mark Hussey via Vwoolf 
Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2020 2:44 PM
To: 'Woolf Listserv' 
Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] The Ramsays in Skye - owning or renting?

A friend in London once explained to me what a “leasehold” meant—but I’ve forgotten the details. It seems peculiar to the UK (or perhaps just England?), where you “own” a flat in a building but you still have to pay some feudal lord in (say) Cornwall) a nominal rent for the land on which the building in which your flat is sits.  Is that right? 😉

 

From: Vwoolf <vwoolf-bounces+mhussey=verizon.net at lists.osu.edu> On Behalf Of Stuart N. Clarke via Vwoolf
Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2020 7:34 AM
To: vwoolf at lists.osu.edu
Subject: [Vwoolf] The Ramsays in Skye - owning or renting?

 

As I was saying, “I was only talking about England & Wales – not even Scotland – far less the US.  (Perhaps I should have been talking about Scotland – which I’m not equipped to do – since the Ramsays’ house is in Skye!)”.

 

One of my favourite Scots words is “feu” = 

in modern use, a perpetual lease for a fixed rent
Difficult for the outsider to grasp how renting perpetually is different *in practice* from owning.  Surely after x years the rent will = 0?  Even less than “twopence half-penny”.

 

Stuart

(Day 120)

 

 

 



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
_______________________________________________
Vwoolf mailing list
Vwoolf at lists.osu.edu
https://lists.osu.edu/mailman/listinfo/vwoolf
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.osu.edu/pipermail/vwoolf/attachments/20200715/9f0de553/attachment-0001.html>