In some places that can be a lot of money. Like New York, I hear property taxes are close to half your mortgage. In places like Washington, property taxes amount to a few thousand dollars a year on a modest house. I'll pay that over $2000/mo in rent any time.

About a third of my mortgage payment here in chicago is for escrow.

> house ownership is just a legal construct

Stange argument, all rights are legal contructs - how do I know my employer will pay me for work done, or my neighbour won't rob be in my sleep and slit my neck?

If we don't trust legal constructs, we can't have a civilisation.

You can trust them, that's not the point. the point is, you can keep your pen or your calculator without having to pay rent on them. You can't keep your land/house unless you pay rent on it to the govt. Considering that all humans require shelter to continue living (surprising: the homeless in the US die 30 yrs younger than the average), a case can be made that property taxes for a minimum amount of land necessary to live are unreasonable. otherwise it's a tax on life

That case doesn't work because the property taxes mostly fund essential local services that are also necessary to live and have a functioning society - there are many locales in the US where the property taxes are zero but there are no improvements or people around you.

I'm in the UK. AFAIK we don't have any ongoing property taxes to pay, at least not if I have bought the freehold. Leaseholders may have to pay ground rent, but that's often a peppercorn and anything above that is being legislated into oblivion this year[0].

Regardless, ownership is a useful legal construct the benefits of which seem to outweigh those of being a tenant.

[0] https://landlordknowledge.co.uk/ground-rents-banned-under-ne...

Do you pay council rates? That’s what are called property taxes in the USA.

Ah yes, there’s council tax - but tenants pay that too, so it’s not a difference between the scenarios. Also I wouldn’t want or expect to stop contributing to local services just because I don’t have a mortgage!

Tenants in the USA do not pay it directly but do so effectively by proxy, because they pay rent to the landlord and the landlord pays property taxes to local government.

Property taxes in the USA go towards local government services like garbage collection and street maintenance, just like council rates. So I believe property tax and council rates are still analogous.