It's an historical artifact from a time when people lived and worked on the nobility's land as literal serfs. The UK is just dreadful at progress, especially when it doesn't serve the elite. The whole concept of a 99 year lease was actually a major victory for commoners / compromise with the nobility and landlord class. While that compromise is no longer part of living memory (1920s) it's certainly still viewed as the furthest acceptable limit by many hereditary and institutional landlords.

One would do this because there is legislation in place which can be used to force an extension of the lease, at a fair and controlled rate. https://www.lease-advice.org/advice-guide/lease-extension-ge...

This is I think generally (although not exclusively) used for "buying" an apartment (ie a "flat" in the UK), rather than a free-standing house -- what in the U.S. would be a condominium. Such as it would be in the case of Grenfell Tower.

Condominium ownership required specific legal authorization in the U.S., which only happened mid 20th century. Before that there was no way to have different people owning different units in a larger building. The closest thing to it was a cooperative, in which you also don't really own your unit as real estate, although it isn't quite the same thing as a UK leasehold, it overlaps.

So, the UK didn't even pass similar legislation to legalize a condoninium-like ownership structure ("commonhold") until the 21st century. And it's still not quite the same. And for whatever reasons hasn't taken off much, maybe because the leasehold system was already so developed at that point. Switching over ownership structures in existing properties is of course a big hassle (why are there so many more cooperatives than condominiums in NYC, even decades after condos were legally authorized? that's part of it)

So, people do it, because that's what evolved from the particular historical and political context to allow "ownership" of an apartment in a building. There's noting "natural" about condominiums, they needed specific legislation to make them possible in the USA too.

In the context of council estates specifically, well there's a bunch more historical and political context. Land ownership and tenure is a social and political construct, it isn't "naturally" any particular way, it turns out.

One reason it hasn't taken over is because the banks are reluctant to lend for such properties as there is less clarity on who's responsible for maintenance.

For some reason not a problem with US condominiums, I wonder if there are different legal factors involved. But yeah, ownership is it turns out built on a whole suite of legal structures and social practices built up over time, there's nothing surprising about a different configuration existing in the UK than the USA.

It is not a problem in most of the world. It is just good old inertia and I guess lack of legal precedents.

> Why on earth would one do this?

There’s no real alternatives (other than living on the street). Why would builders and landlords give up such an obvious advantageous arrangement?

People are pushing for change, common holds are slowly becoming a thing. But ultimately there’s a housing shortage in the U.K, and beggars can’t be choosers. It sucks, but you can’t argue with reality.

> "Purchasing" one of these "long-leases" strikes me as doublespeak, a gimmick no different from prepaying 99 years of rent. Ownership doesn't expire.

It’s just like purchasing a future, or any other time bounded asset. Your purchasing the opportunity in a manner of speaking, your ownership of the lease never expires, it just becomes worthless after 99 years.

99 years is pretty short, they're accordingly cheaper / harder to sell at the bottom end.

More typical might be you buy somewhere with a 550 year lease, and sell it ten years later with 540 remaining.

Clearly that barely had an impact on the value; probably it appreciated in value over that time, judt not quite as much as a comparable freehold.