That is not correct.

In the UK, there is a concept of Freehold and Leasehold. In the former case you own the land under and everything built on it. In most of the country you buy the Freehold.

The Leasehold gives you ownership of the building but not the land under it. You lease the land from the owner. I've personally considered this form of "ownership" a trap. It has become more common in recent years as a way for sellers to screw buyers. Particular in the London area where demand is always extra high.

It’s not incorrect, either. I phrased it carefully, to indicate that I don’t know for sure. It describes my grandparents’ house, in Liverpool (I assume it was a “leasehold.” I never knew the official name). I know that my mother did not inherit their house, but there may have been other factors, involved.

Technically, I guess I don’t “own” my own land, either, but I pay (significant) taxes on it (because I “own” it, according to the taxing authorities. They don’t tax the bank; they tax me). The taxes are assessed on the total value of the land and the building, and location^3 is a fairly significant coefficient.

Land is a weird (but frequently lucrative) investment. You can’t lock it in a safe, and, if your neighbors start a hog farm, you can’t just pick it up and move away.

> I think that, in the UK, you don’t actually own the land your house sits on; Lord Such-and-Such owns it, and collects rent from you.

This isn't quite right.

There's something kinda like that called leasehold, where you basically own an extremely long lease on a property (typically 70+ years, often up to 999 years), with the freehold (outright ownership) sitting beneath it. Generally it's used on apartment blocks and certain new-builds in specific areas (e.g. they're more common in London, but outright banned in Scotland outside of some pre-existing edge cases). There's a good chance the whole thing will be functionally reformed out of existence in the near future (see here https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/leasehold-reform-in-eng...).

But in any case, the vast majority of UK property is sold freehold, or as you put it "we own the land, and that is usually the real value".

Thanks for the correction.

The only reference I had, was my grandparents’ “named” house, in Liverpool (It was actually a pretty nice place, near the beach, for what that’s worth, in Liverpool).

I remember my grandmother, explaining it to me, and that was what I got from it.

I was too young to have a decent frame of reference, though.

No, that's not the universal case in the UK. My freehold gives me ownership of my house and the land on which it is built.

You're right that most of the value of the property is in the land and not the building though.

You're paying taxes, yeah? And if you were to overlook those tax payments, what would become of your supposed ownership? And subject to eminent domain? Not to mention the many laws of the lands and social expectations besides.

How much do you really own?

In that sense, you don't own your body either: At any time, the government could send goons to shoot you or jail you or harvest your kidneys. Even if you leave the country, they could put a bounty on your head or send assassins.

Sure, there's courts and laws, but they pick the judges and can choose to change the laws. They could pass a constitutional amendment tomorrow giving themselves the right to harvest your kidneys, the same way local counties can pass a law at any time raising your property taxes.

And, even if you argue that you have rights under the current government, empires don't last forever. 300 years from now, who's to say barbarians won't be ransacking the house you left to your kids? In that sense, your rights are only contingent on the barbarians being too scared to attack, and not absolute.

So if your argument is, "You can't own a house because the government could take it away", it seems like you have no hope and no possible policy change would give you any "true rights" to anything.

What you say is absolutely correct.

While you have governments that can legally steal everything from you just because they can, you'll never really be free.

That said, there are degrees of freedom.

Property taxes in the US are very high so I consider it an inferior degree of freedom compared to owning a house in a country where I don't have property taxes. The more corporation / income tax I have to pay the less free I am, hence why I'll move to a country which charge less corporation / income tax.

Sure, I'm still owned by the government because they have soldiers and guns and I have none - but at least I can live my life as close as possible to how I'd like to live it.

It is possible to fix this situation once and for all: abolish the government and its idea of legitimacy, let people organise their own defence from the goons of other countries by paying voluntarily.

You won't end up with a much different system, you'll still have some people not paying anything and some people paying more to defend their community - but at least I would pay voluntarily what's needed for my defence without enriching the politicians, fake intermediaries with empty promises, and it wouldn't be coerced out of me under threat of fines and imprisonment.

That seems like it would very quickly turn into tribute to the local warlord.

That was, at least the common narrative goes, the fundamental basis for most if not all states. Mutual defense. And it's hardly any different today. There have been many cases of non-state societies who did organize their own protections. But to try and connect the dots with such factions (many of which are still functioning today) and the modern man is an error. We're talking societies with scribal and priestly classes which in no ways exist in the modern era, when the global average literacy sits at 83% and the mindblowing advancements we've seen in the last two decades alone is a force multiplier for autonomous organization that is totally unprecedented, like most of all of the advancements seen since the seminal moments of the industrial revolution.

But ultimately your negative outlook on the human condition is your own, 99% of daily life proceeds under conditions of total anarchy, authority and security are entirely illusory and we pay incredible costs to maintain those illusions, not in terms of liberty alone, but in toil and life itself. It leaves little left to live for, read the Death of Ivan Illyich if you want a better understanding of what I mean.

> 99% of daily life proceeds under conditions of total anarchy, authority and security are entirely illusory and we pay incredible costs to maintain those illusions

Those costs are totally worth it. I'd rather live in a nation with liberal democracy and property laws, than whatever more "pure" or original model you seem to have in mind.

You say that but history has lots of examples of people taken in by such egalitarian societies and doing an about-face, and when the European societies took in people, they more often sought to return.

In any case, what I'm talking about is democratic and does not forego property rights, in fact it could give you stronger property rights. But you didn't read the grandparent.

> but I think that, in the UK, you don’t actually own the land your house sits on; Lord Such-and-Such owns it, and collects rent from you.

I've never heard this before. Is this actually true? Is this some background technical legal truth that isn't noticed in practice?

To be clear, anyone can own the freehold that you’re leasing the property from. The mention of ”Lord Such-and-Such” could give you the idea that this is some antiquated construct where all lands are somehow truly owned by the nobility, but that’s not how it is.

Called a leasehold. Not all property is like this though.

Like, 85% in London though.

About 34% of London is leasehold: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/leasehold-dwellings...

Ok, maybe I should have specified "under £650k within zones 1, 2 and 3".

I'm sure Roman Abramovich's mansion is freehold as are all those semidetached houses on the outskirts with a 55 minute commute to the centre.

You don’t really own it. That’s just a legal construct. If you have to pay rent to the government (property taxes) to “keep” it then you don’t really own it

In Virginia, you need to pay taxes for your car (at least, you used to. Not sure if they still do). This was different from registration, and applied, even if your car is sitting in your driveway without plates.

I think they also used to charge tax for significant-value property, like computers.