> Then the government should buy the land.
No, I don't think so.
> You own a building and the building is not currently occupied. The building is unsightly but structurally sound. Does/should the government have the right to make you surrender that building without compensation (because that’s what forfeit means) simply due to it being unoccupied? Why?
Yes. The legal principle has a long, long history across many different legal systems.
And I think you're thinking about it wrong: the government didn't "make you surrender that building," you chose to surrender it by leaving it unoccupied and unused to the point someone else could occupy and use it without a timely challenge.
Cite them.
Usucapio
I am not a commonwealth lawyer, but my understanding is that they have a similar modern rule in the UK and other commonwealth countries. I am not a continental lawyer, but my understanding is that civil law is similar with respect to government takings.
I will give you credit here because you may have interpreted the GP’s statement of “or forfeit the property” to mean generally lose possession of the property (including to a third party) rather than in the context of the prior sentence that references “the state allowing.” So, some backwards ancient legal principles that have been rejected or severely limited in modern times MIGHT support the contention that a third party can take someone’s land due to it being unoccupied and no modern legal principles support the contention that the government can make someone forfeit their land to the state merely for it being unoccupied.
The answer to my question (Does/should the government have the right to make you surrender that building without compensation (because that’s what forfeit means) simply due to it being unoccupied? Why?) is then “Maybe to someone that is occupying the unoccupied building (however that works) but not to the government.” Got it.
And it’s clear we both know that I have been talking about GOVERNMENT takings (“The government should tell property owners that they are required to keep their property occupied otherwise the government should seize their property?”).
Because homelessness caused by artificial scarcity is violation of a basic human right, and a public order nightmare. Putting private property above other human rights is the root cause of so much problems in today's societies.
Question. If I owned a house, and went on a long vacation outside the country (e.g. because maybe I like travelling or something), how long would I be able to stay on vacation before the government yoinked my house due to it being empty?
Because you know the problem doesn't come from people going for long vacations, but from landlords hoarding houses and holding in order to never let the price go down.
«Owning a house» can mean two very different things. It's either:
- I'm living in a place and I don't depend on anyone for hosting me.
- I hold some piece of paper that says that this particular place in the country belongs to me and if the people living there don't pay me I can call the police to get them evicted.
The first one is basic human right and should be protected as such, the second one is just something enforced by the power of the state in favor of the upper class against the working class.
[1] which, in many countries you need to declare to the government already, so that they know where to get you should they send the police to arrest you.
If the answer is "yes", then based on your post, the answer to my question of how long can I take a vacation for, is "decades".
But if that is indeed considered empty, then what if in addition to that, every month I email someone my travel expenses and tell them to print them and to put them in some drawer in that property (maybe locked with a key or something), and also mail some cheap souvenirs and tell them to put them as decoration somewhere, is that still considered empty? (Since it has my stuff, and is continuously storing more stuff I'm purchasing.)
If that is allowed, then the next question is what if my vacation is in the same country.
So yeah, what kind of activity, and with what frequency, does that property have to have in order for it to not be considered empty, without leaving some kind of loophole?
For instance, you are paying income taxes in your “country of residence” and not in your country of vacations (unless you are an American citizen living abroad, in which case you pay it to both your country of residence and to the US), and there is a threshold that makes one country qualify as “country of residence” versus your countries of vacations.
But like I said, I'm dumb when it comes to this topic.
But it is the crux of the problem.
When establishing things like "country of residence" (or, here in the US, to which state(s) you owe taxes), the second order effects aren't the same. It's the difference between "you owe a few extra percent of your income for one year" versus "you lose your home permanently".
As public policy, it is important not to expropriate someone's home simply because they had to be away for extenuating life circumstances like caring for an ailing relative for a few months. Because otherwise, you will disincentivize that behavior (and create a greater burden for the state).
It's easy for you to come back with "Oh, well the competent bureaucrats in my government will simply write an exception for those who leave for a few months of eldercare because that is clearly a legitimate reason to leave your house vacant for a few months." But that is just a bandaid on an artery which creates an explosion of exceptions and exceptions to the exceptions.
What happens if I need to care for my grandmother, and then something else comes up? Do I get to have two exemptions to expropriation? Can they be consecutive? What sort of documentation do I need? What if the exemption allows n days, but I need n+3? What if I had planned an m-1 days vacation (for the m vacation days exception) right before I need n days to care for my grandmother?
Very quickly you will have 10,000 pages of rules that nobody understands. And you will get perverse outcomes when someone hits an edge case that wasn't quite accounted for.
Or maybe you will say "put the case in front of a judge and let them exercise discretion". But now we have the problem that it is no longer really rule of law, and people with connections will always get exceptions while people without don't. So that increases the class divide because people with connections are usually rich, and middle-class people usually don't have connections.
And then, all this argument is basically a straw man, because there no need for the state to guess anything or to set threshold, at all: all you need to do is mandate people to declare their primary residence, and in fact it is the case in many fiscal system already! If it is your primary residence, then fine, you can leave it empty for as long you want, as long as you are not lying on the fact that this is in fact your primary residence (and if you're lying, then the state must gather the evidence and win against you in court, which is what the rule of law is).
Tada! Imaginary problems solved.
Then the government should buy the land.
>> For a very clear example: if you're surrounded by starving people, and you own a warehouse full of food that you plan to let rot because you can't be bothered, the government absolutely does have the right to tell you what to do with that food.
Let’s not use other examples and argumentation by analogy when we already have a very clear fact pattern. You own a building and the building is not currently occupied. The building is unsightly but structurally sound. Does/should the government have the right to make you surrender that building without compensation (because that’s what forfeit means) simply due to it being unoccupied? Why?