No, I am not moving, MM, although it was, a while ago, on the cards. Those cards, however, threw up some interesting legal points, the most important of which was who owns the bit of land on which I have, without challenge, parked various cars for two decades. House deeds are fascinating documents and I have learnt that the ownership of not all the land in England is on record with the all-powerful Land Registry - only 80% of our Sceptred Isle is so recorded. My parking space - and its owner - is not. Neighbours who have likewise parked on what various deeds refer to as "the Yard" are also confused. We suspect that some descendant of one of  William the Conqueror's chums probably owns our parking spaces. Apparently one's land may not be registered,  but one can still legally own it. No one seems to know who actually "owns" the communal Yard if we do not; but it is not "common ground". My solicitor tells me that in law there is no such thing as "common ground" - someone, somewhere, owns every bit of England. Is he right? If so, who says? And when and how was land originally "registered" - simply by property deeds? Did all this start indeed (pun intended) with the Domesday Book? My little patch of England, including where I park my car, is very precious to me and other patches - in this tiny, overcrowded island - are terribly, terribly valuable - worth fighting over, especially in the South-East.

Is land "registered" in other lands?  Who owned France, for example, post-Revolution? And what on earth happened in Ireland - all huge those Anglo-Irish estates with their grand houses and workers' cottages etc. - who on earth sorted all that out post-1922?

Well, NZ is based on British law, but I am (relatively) sure that every bit of it is in someone's ownership (though whose may be and often is disputed, especially if there is Maori links to it.  If they can prove they have lived or used the land without leaving it, I think they can claim the right to continue using it.

If land is not privately owned by individuals or corporate entities, then the state has ownership of it, either in the Department of Conservation estate or some other form.  DOC owns nearly 30% of NZ land according to wikipedia and I think Crown-owned land in the form of high-country pastoral leases for farms is another 8% (though that may be included in the 30%, but I think DOC land and pastoral leases are separate).

Some private homes are in a state of limbo, where owners or rather descendants of owners can't be found, but I think in that case it reverts to the state after a time.  Certainly there is no right in NZ for squatters, and NZers find that an abhorrent thought.  Land belongs to its owners, and we don't have the right to wander across land at will, without the owner's permission.

Caro wrote:

Some private homes are in a state of limbo, where owners or rather descendants of owners can't be found, but I think in that case it reverts to the state after a time.

I wonder if the Crown owns my parking space? I do hope they don't give it to the new Duchess of Sussex as part of her marriage settlement. She's not parking her car outside my house.

The official system of land registry in France (La Cadastre) is under the auspices of the French tax authority (Direction Générale des Finances Publiques) as it came about in roughly its present form shortly after the Revolution for the purpose of calculating land tax. The title plans, plans cadastraux, show numbered plots and boundaries of all land parcels on which ownership is based, but they in themselves do not provide details of the owner of a property or all the land parcels in a single ownership. For that you need to consult the legal documents (Actes) relating to the land acquisition, whether by purchase, inheritance, or donation, which will make reference to the relevant numbers for the parcels of land. The plans/maps do show buildings, roads, the size of the plot and the place name (lieu dit) of the property to which it belongs, but the boundary description on the cadastre is often very vague or even completely non-existent. Moreover, the cadastre often does not show the precise boundaries between properties and, as a result, they are not a definitive statement of the legal boundaries of a property, which can only be established by a land survey. As such they cannot in themselves be relied upon to resolve any boundary disputes.
 
Looking at the cadastre relating to my own land (I have 5 parcels of greatly differing sizes) there is little to indicate where the boundaries actually lie (it's just boundary lines with almost no other detail at all, other than the outline of the house), although it does make more sense when you know the terrain, and the boundaries do seem to mostly run along well-established hedges/fences and the edges of roads. The principal uncertainties are where my boundaries run along a river and a small stream. The river is shown considerably wider than the reality. I believe this is because, following disastrous flooding in 1940 which completely obliterated one house close to the river, the whole river bank stretching back from the actual water up to about 100m on my side, is now classed as non-constructable (terrain non-constructible), the question then is who owns the river and bank? The official land registry website just says that demarcation is not possible if the land is separated by a river as the land is "not considered to be contiguous". Nevertheless the key boundary between myself and my neighbours is a straight line which seems to take as its two end points just a particular large tree (not itself marked but that's where the road kinks) and the centre of the circular plunge pool below the main waterfall in the river: at least that’s how I and successive neighbours have interpreted it, but it does all seem a bit vague. The other issue is the small stream that forms the SE boundary. I went down there a few weeks ago – the first time I’ve ventured down to the "bottom of my garden" for about two years – and I noticed that the stream has shifted its course a bit and so I seem to have gained about 50m² of land.

All this shows the limitations of the cadastre and as the official website points out if there is a a need to determine the boundaries of a property because the cadastre is unclear, is disputed, or a plot is to be broken up into different ownerships, it is obligatory to engage the services of a land surveyor (géomètre) to undertake a formal determination of the boundaries and division of the land. In short then, the French cadastre seems to be much less precise than the British Land Registry, at least out in the sticks, although admittedly the cadastre for our old house in a French town was much more precisely defined. And of course these days the whole registry can be made to overlay onto Google-Earth.

I once was contacted by the British Land Registry as they had detected an "inconsistency", in the plans relating to my then property in Epsom, which amounted to a long thin triangle about 10 feet long and one foot wide at one end going to zero at the other, which was part of the concreted access to a shared garage block. If I agreed to the change I had to sign and get a solicitor to witness my signature, for which of course the solcitor demanded a £25 fee. As it wasn't my fault I didn't see why the Land Registry shouldn't reimburse me the money, and said as much to the solicitor. But he said basically don't even try as you can't possibly win against them: note,  he said, they have not admitted to any error, only that they had picked up on an "inconsistency", and they could say you were at fault for not promptly bringing the matter to their attention. He sympathised, but he did still pocket my £25.

I don't know that I can cast any light on who owns your parking space, T.  I presume you have already been on the Land Registry site or that your solicitor will have told you to do (or have done) a search of the Index Map.  https://www.gov.uk › Housing and local services › Owning and renting a property

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I think the search of the index map used to be free but believe it's £4 now.  Of course if the land is not registered even a search of the index map may not be of assistance.  It's 10 years since I worked full-time as a legal secretary and rules may have changed since 2008.  I'm living in a house my parents bought circa 1948 and it's never been registered though if this house is ever sold (which it presumably will be some time even if after I depart this life) it will have to be registered.  But if property has been in possession of a person (or family) from before the time it became compulsory to register property on a sale you may be "stuck".

The situation in France, as in the UK, seems horribly complicated - no wonder the lawyers and surveyors make so much money out of us all and why moving house can be such a nightmare.

My solicitor has done all the Land Registry stuff, LiR, but the "Yard" is what he - with a perplexed frown - calls "a grey area". About seven of us park on the Yard, some of us have done so for many years and some (not me!) have what's called "rights of easement" and "rights of access". I thought "easement" was to do with Public Lavatories (Henry VIII had a magnificent House of Easement built at Hampton Court), but apparently the term is also used in land disputes. Unlikely anyone would ever challenge our right (or in my case my non-right) to park, but these days you never know. I just wanted things sorted out in case I do try selling my cottage again. I do have a  hardstanding area that I never use. If the worst comes to the worst I could build out on that, I suppose, but that will necessitate the horror of a planning permission application to the local council and the Spanish Inquisition that inevitably involves.

Land disputes are nothing new, of course. Imaging having Thomas Cromwell as a neighbour and having a row with him! It happened, and he, predictably, proved to be the ultimate litigious neighbour from hell:



In 1532, at the height of his wealth and power, Cromwell undertook a four year expansion programme on his principal home, Austin Friars, to create one of the largest private properties in London. Rather problematically, Cromwell did not own the neighbouring land he wished to extend into. The initial stages of the proposed development did, however, run smoothly, albeit with a brief hiatus whilst his 80 man workforce went up north to suppress the Pilgrimage of Grace. Cromwell acquired an additional 99 year lease over his current house together with a neighbouring property and warehouse. A couple of years later, Cromwell enlarged his property further by acquiring the leasehold interest of his neighbour, Vivaldi, this time by not only buying out Vivaldi's lease but also the remainder of Vivaldi's lessee's interest.

Cromwell's good luck was not to last, however. Thomas Stow, an elderly gentleman whose son was to go on to author the Survey of London, lived in a property located in the centre of Cromwell's proposed renovation project.  He refused to budge. No money was enough, no threats were sufficient and so, Cromwell employed a tactic unavailable to his present day counterparts: he instructed his builders to lift poor Stow's property on rollers and wheel it out the way. Problem solved.

As I see it Meles meles, it is completely the same system as in France overhere. Although we have here the right wing Flemish Nationalists overhere they can't deny that we have mostly the French system in Belgium. Even I suppose in heritage matters still the Code Napoléon .

Kind regards from Paul.

Temperance wrote:

"... . Those cards, however, threw up some interesting legal points, the most important of which was who owns the bit of land on which I have, without challenge, parked various cars for two decades. House deeds are fascinating documents and I have learnt that the ownership of not all the land in England is on record with the all-powerful Land Registry - only 80% of our Sceptred Isle is so recorded. My parking space - and its owner - is not. Neighbours who have likewise parked on what various deeds refer to as "the Yard" are also confused. We suspect that some descendant of one of  William the Conqueror's chums probably owns our parking spaces. Apparently one's land may not be registered,  but one can still legally own it. No one seems to know who actually "owns" the communal Yard if we do not; but it is not "common ground". My solicitor tells me that in law there is no such thing as "common ground" - someone, somewhere, owns every bit of England. Is he right? ...

Is land "registered" in other lands?  Who owned France, for example, post-Revolution? And what on earth happened in Ireland - all huge those Anglo-Irish estates with their grand houses and workers' cottages etc. - who on earth sorted all that out post-1922?

Temperance,
Re your original question what ever I've read suggest that William the Conqueror declared that as he'd won 'he' owned all of England; following that he partioned bits and pieces out to his chums, some as grants and some as fiefs according to feudal law, he and his descendants actually attempted - with only partial succes - to make certain that no other person than the King should become too powerful in any shire. 
Regarding lands held by the Church I have no idea whether such ownership was recognized by William or the various holders of such had to be re-granted.
Thus, as you  mention, if secure proof is delivered to the Land Registry you may be done out of a parking space.

As Wales was disputed and conquered over the following centuries, it seems that the same practice was used there.

Ireland is another matter, even if many things appear similar to Wales as there were both local holders of land, perhaps incorrectly described to me as 'clans' and followers of the Monarch being gifted with areas of land disregarding ancient clan rights yet taken by force. 
The Tudor monarchs used a tactic called surrender and re-grant - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_and_regrant - where a local  Irish head of a clan would surrender his ancient rights to an area, and the Monarch would then re-grant same with an appropriate Irish-English title to go with it. 

This may be where the concept of English, Scottish, and Irish peerages evolved in the British Isles with seniority according those Kingdoms and later to the various Unions having taken place - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peerages_in_the_United_Kingdom - but that is a tangent.

As I mentioned Scotland above this is still another matter, as the concept of the 'King owning everything by right of conquest' was not used - if it was, I haven't heard of it - and thus, even following the Union of 1707, distinct differences in English and Scottish Laws regarding this subject are recognized as such.

I should have loved to put in a pun on the old Scottish Parliament before the union - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_Scotland - described as a unicameral council of clergy, nobles and later representatives from the burghs, thus somewhat equalling it to contemporary European Diets, but not commenting on - present days - dietary regulations. Alas that one fell like a lead balloon.


Edited because of spelling.

Nielsen wrote:

Re your original question what ever I've read suggest that William the Conqueror declared that as he'd won 'he' owned all of England; following that he partioned bits and pieces out to his chums ...

The current Duke of Westminster a few years ago inherited an estate of around 130,000 acres, worth £9 billion (on which, due to clever accounting, he was required to pay no inheritance tax) and as his father, the previous duke, famously once said when asked for advice on how young entrepreneurs could succeed: "Make sure they have an ancestor who was a very close friend of William the Conqueror."

About a third of Britain's roughly 60 million acres (or half of all its rural land) is owned by just 36,000 aristocratic families and businessmen, and the vast majority of that is in the hands of just 1,200 aristocrats and their relatives, many indeed descended from men who came over with William the Conqueror and whose descendants have spent the last 950 years carefully consolidating and adding to the original holdings.

That said, some of the very top landowners are not aristocratic families. In descending order of the size of their holdings, the UK's top 12 landowners are:

1.  The Forestry Commission (1,571,270 acres)
2.  The National Trust (630,000 acres)
3.  Defence Estates, for the Ministry of Defence (592,800 acres)
4.  Pension funds - various (550,000 acres)
5.  Utilities - water, electricity, railways etc. (500,000 acres) which includes the biggest individual corporate landowner, United Utilities Water, with 140,100 acres
6.  The Crown Estate ie. the Queen (358,000 acres)
7.  The RSPB - Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (321,237 acres)
8.  The Duke of Buccleuch & Queensberry (240,000 acres)
9.  The National Trust for Scotland (192,000 acres)
10. The Duke of Atholl (145,700 acres)
11. The Duchy of Cornwall ie Prince Charles ( 133,600 acres)
12. The Duke of Westminster (133,100 acres)

.... which all makes my garden, with its adjacent little patch of woodland, look very paltry indeed.

Gosh, that's interesting, MM. I am very pleased to see the RSPB on that list. I shall leave my parking space to them in my will.

I am a member of the National Trust, so it's nice to think I own a miniscule corner of their 630,000 acres - in addition, of course, to my cottage and garden. I'm probably just as happy in my garden (with all the birds who visit it) as the Dukes of Atholl and Westminster on their vast estates. I like to think so anyway.

It's interesting also to note that the Duke of Westminster's estates, as well as huge swathes of rural land, also includes most of Mayfair, Belgravia and Pimlico ... so although he has about the same amount of land as the Duchy of Cornwall, it is actually worth about six times Charlie's estates. Also note that the Crown Estate doesn't include either Sandringham or Balmoral as both these huge estates are the personal property of the Queen in her own right.

Incidentally in 1872 the only non aristocratic entry in the list of top ten English landowners was the Church of England at the No.1 position with a huge holding of 2.2 million acres (equivalent to the counties of Suffolk and Norfolk combined). Nowadays the Church of England has 'just' 120,000 acres.

Temperance wrote:

I'm probably just as happy in my garden (with all the birds who visit it) as the Dukes of Atholl and Westminster on their vast estates. I like to think so anyway.

It is somewhat ironic that the RSPB is such a big landowner while many of the other very large estates are given over to grouse or pheasant shooting, which generally means the deliberate destruction of all other natual bird life.

An overmighty baron indeed. He wouldn't have lasted long if the Tudors were still in charge.

Temperance wrote:

An overmighty baron indeed. He wouldn't have lasted long if the Tudors were still in charge.

Although it is again interesting that the 12th Duke of Northumberland, Ralph Percy, is a descendant of Henry Percy, son of the 5th Earl of Northumberland, who was Anne Boleyn's first love - and he (the current duke) has still managed to inherit most of his ancestor's estates, and add some more, so that he is now, I think, number 13 in the above list with about 130,000 acres in Northumberland (including Hogwarts ... I mean Alnwick Castle). So even falling foul of Henry VIII doesn't seem to have done the family that much damage in the long run.

The Howard family, despite being Catholic recusants and sometimes even involved in plots against Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, which caused at least a couple of them to forfeit their heads, seem to have done alright too in the long run. Edward Fitzalan-Howard, the current Duke of Norfolk, still owns about 46,000 acres, including the ancestral home of Arundel Castle in Sussex, in addition to being the hereditary Earl Marshal of England and the country's premier peer.

Anne Boleyn's first love handed all his estates over to Henry VIII in his will. He had no heir. One is tempted to see this as a nicely ironic touch from Harry P. "Here, Henry, you took the one girl I loved - you may as well have the land as well..." It was more likely about religion, politics and fraternal hatred.

An interesting and tragic character, Anne's Harry Percy probably drank himself to death. Dying, he was described as being "yellow and distended" - suggests liver disease.

Harry Percy's nephew got the whole lot back in 1549 (Percy had originally asked that this should happen). This Percy was executed for treason in 1572 and was given the title "Blessed" by the Pope. His brother, the 6th Earl's other nephew, who was a loyal Protestant, inherited.

Any chance of getting the space by "adverse possession", Temperance.  www.johnantell.co.uk/adverse-possession-of-land

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though would all of you who park there need to apply for possession of the land?

Temperance wrote:

No, I am not moving, MM, although it was, a while ago, on the cards. Those cards, however, threw up some interesting legal points, the most important of which was who owns the bit of land on which I have, without challenge, parked various cars for two decades. House deeds are fascinating documents and I have learnt that the ownership of not all the land in England is on record with the all-powerful Land Registry - only 80% of our Sceptred Isle is so recorded. My parking space - and its owner - is not. Neighbours who have likewise parked on what various deeds refer to as "the Yard" are also confused. We suspect that some descendant of one of  William the Conqueror's chums probably owns our parking spaces. Apparently one's land may not be registered,  but one can still legally own it. No one seems to know who actually "owns" the communal Yard if we do not; but it is not "common ground". My solicitor tells me that in law there is no such thing as "common ground" - someone, somewhere, owns every bit of England. Is he right? If so, who says? And when and how was land originally "registered" - simply by property deeds? Did all this start indeed (pun intended) with the Domesday Book? My little patch of England, including where I park my car, is very precious to me and other patches - in this tiny, overcrowded island - are terribly, terribly valuable - worth fighting over, especially in the South-East.

Is land "registered" in other lands?  Who owned France, for example, post-Revolution? And what on earth happened in Ireland - all huge those Anglo-Irish estates with their grand houses and workers' cottages etc. - who on earth sorted all that out post-1922?

Temperance,

"my parking space - and its owner - is not registered"

Ours was registered, lot number so and so, section so and so and so on stamp from the registration and date, but that is not a safety in certain situations...We bought a house on a corner...more than one hundred years old. It was a part of a formerly big "café" (I had to remove even the the plastered shield "Café National"). But in the meantime, perhaps some fifty years ago they split the big café in two. Changed the front door of one in a window and at the other side of the corner a window in a frontdoor. In the second house near the new separation wall they made also a new frontdoor from a window...
All good and well...no trouble...especially while it was a nice neighbour left by her partner after he refurbished her home...
But then there came in a third house adjacent to her house a new owner...until then no trouble with the older couple who owned that house...

But then the trouble began...the new owner, let fully construct again the old house, as I saw at at a very high price, all contractors and the best materials...and as I found from the first contacts a bit of a "schoolmaster" (in our dialect that has a very pejorative connotation...I hope that there are not that many schoolmasters around overhere...)

In his cellar there was infiltration and it stank...he first tackled our neighbour, because her courtyard abuted at his cellar...she came to me and I said the best is to go to the mediator of your insurance and ask his insurance to mediate too. In between we went on journey for a fortnight, but in the meantime matters got soured...it seemed that we from the former unique corner café had a common cesspit...(why is it that it is always I, who come coincidentally up with cesspit and all that...?).
And it was this common "build in bricks!" cesspit, who abuted to his cellar...
I said that my registered part of our building did't abuted to his cellar, but in any case I asked also my insurance company...
At the end after several weeks we had the three insurances and the three parties together...we went all to our cellar, which was still a vaulted one as in the middle ages...and of course our cellar had nothing to do with the cesspit and was dry...then we went to his cellar and indeed there was a moistering on the wall which was not nice...upstairs again I mentioned to the owner that it was my neighbour her cesspit , which was the cause, while it was on her ground, but she said that they didn't use the cesspit anymore, that she has put a new plastic one on the courtyard and had made a new connection to the road...and in fact she was right as it was indeed the shit from our house, which moistered the man's wall...as I said that we then had to seek a common solution for this cesspit, she agreed, but then the new owner of the third house became very angry and as an Roman emperor, furious against me, his arm and finger in the air: leave immediately now my house...
Outdoors on the street with the three insurances we reached a "compromis des Belges" no cost for any insurance...I would clear the pit and fill it up and also put a plastic cesspit with a new connection to the street and she would pay half of the cost of emptying the pit and filling it with concrete...and instaid of paying, her brother in law, who was an entrepreneur, would refurbish and cover our common wall with special waterproof plates...
But at the end it was also a big cost, while they said to me that it was dangerous to fill the cesspit with a concrete pump, which would have taken only a quarter of an hour. And it was too dangerous while the common wall with the third (angry) owner could have collapsed...so we had to do it gradually through the narrow corridor till the courtyard and the cesspit with the wheel barrow and the shovel...

Kind regards from Paul.

A rather embarrassing incident led to a change in the law in Ireland. In 1966, just as the country was about to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising, it was revealed that the GPO in Dublin - the iconic centre of any such celebration and etched into the Irish nationalist psyche as a great symbol of liberation from the Saxon foe - though in nominal ownership of the Department of Post and Telegraphs (or the Department of telegraph posts, as many liked to call it), still owed substantial ground rent to an unidentified English Earl who, being on his uppers himself, had sold it off to a nameless American outfit who were now looking for the back payments. As part of their legal entitlement they could, if the Irish government didn't cough up the readies, force a sale of the property and recoup one eighth of the yield for themselves. The amount at that stage was quite substantial, so substantial that its payment would have to have been included in the national budget as an outgoing - and with drastic political consequences for all concerned at the Irish end. Some frantic trans-Atlantic trips and covert forays into the Sceptic Isle by Irish diplomats meant a quiet deal could be reached so as not to spoil the party back in the Old Sod, the terms of which meant that the Irish continued to buy out ground rent on that particular property for another 25 years.

This buy-out was only possible because the Irish introduced that option in 1967 in direct response to this little embarrassment, a change which as far as I know still isn't open to leaseholders in the UK, and only applies if the ground rent owner agrees anyway. At this stage in fact many prominent Irish state buildings still pay ground rent to English aristocracy, the most notable being Áras an Uachtaráin (the President's gaff) from which Her Madge gets a nice little annual earner, Dáil Éireann (the House of Commons / Senate) which pays even more to the permanently absent Earl of Leinster (currently a weird little scamp living in Scotland, I believe, who uses the revenue to run a betting shop outfit), Dublin Castle which just about keeps the present Duke of Westminster in brandy for the year, and half the real estate on the swanky south side of the river where all those lovely old picturesque Georgian properties' ground rent ensures that the current Earl of Pembroke (tottering dangerously near bankruptcy himself) can at least keep the odd chimney in Wilton House from falling down on his paying guests. The residents of Lucan, meanwhile, have refused to pay any further ground rent (since 1975) until their lord and master announces his whereabouts. In fact there is quite a lot of non-payment by ordinary people, something which can come back to bite them big time if they sell the freehold on their property and suddenly find they have to pay nanny-murderers and such like an eighth of the proceeds anyway.

To eliminate ground rent completely, and finally free us from under this stubborn parasitic Saxon yoke, will take a referendum, I hear. So here we go again ....

All that makes my parking seem a very small problem, Paul! Our cottages are near a big old lime Kiln (very historic!) and the owner of the kiln says his deeds indicate clearly the Yard is his. We can park for a "small annual fee which is now under review".

Just in case of trouble in the future, I'm going ahead with the enlargement of my hardstanding area to make (if needed) a larger parking area that is without doubt all mine. The bit that's already there is a lovely old cobbled patch, so I shall have to find someone who can cobble in the old way. I'm not having crazy paving from B&Q.

No one has shouted at anyone else here - only in jest. "Get your compost wheelie bin off my land!" is regularly heard on a Monday morning now when we put our bins on the Yard for collection. The dispute about the ownership of the Yard has all become a bit of a joke: we are all parking away happily, as before. This only cropped up because of my trying to sell my house; I'm beginning to suspect the various solicitors just like digging out problems that have never really been a problem. But that "under review" is rather worrying...

I'm still shocked at how much of England* the aristocrats still own, especially those overmighty Dukes: I wonder if the Duke of Westminster parks free in London? I can just imagine him being given a ticket by a Parking Enforcement Officer and him saying, "Look here, my man, do you know who I am? I own Mayfair."

EDIT:   *Just read new message - add "and Ireland".

nordmann wrote:

...or the Department of telegraph posts, as many liked to call it...

Temperance wrote:

All that makes my parking seem a very small problem, Paul! Our cottages are near a big old lime Kiln (very historic!) and the owner of the kiln says his deeds indicate clearly the Yard is his. We can park for a "small annual fee which is now under review".

Just in case of trouble in the future, I'm going ahead with the enlargement of my hardstanding area to make (if needed) a larger parking area that is without doubt all mine. The bit that's already there is a lovely old cobbled patch, so I shall have to find someone who can cobble in the old way. I'm not having crazy paving from B&Q.

No one has shouted at anyone else here - only in jest. "Get your compost wheelie bin off my land!" is regularly heard on a Monday morning now when we put our bins on the Yard for collection. The dispute about the ownership of the Yard has all become a bit of a joke: we are all parking away happily, as before. This only cropped up because of my trying to sell my house; I'm beginning to suspect the various solicitors just like digging out problems that have never really been a problem. But that "under review" is rather worrying...

I'm still shocked at how much of England* the aristocrats still own, especially those overmighty Dukes: I wonder if the Duke of Westminster parks free in London? I can just imagine him being given a ticket by a Parking Enforcement Officer and him saying, "Look here, my man, do you know who I am? I own Mayfair."

EDIT:   *Just read new message - add "and Ireland".

nordmann wrote:

...or the Department of telegraph posts, as many liked to call it...

 

Temperance,

thanks for the reply.
"I'm still shocked at how much of England* the aristocrats still own, especially those overmighty Dukes: "

I did a lot of research the day before yesterday to come up with a list as MM's for Belgium.
But all failed attempts, especially with Dutch word combinations...only about the Duke of Wellington, which posseses a thousand "hectares" (a hectare about 2.5 acres) near Waterloo, all given to him for his fight overthere. From time to time political upset about it, but the Belgian tenants are quite satisfied as they have their money on a regular and save basis up to now...
It seems to be really a state secret and many times they laugh with it, especially on French sites...
While I had more luck with French word combinations as "grand propriétaires fonciers" (big ground owners?) (in Dutch: grote grootgrondbezitters)
http://www.lesoir.be/archive/recup/le-tour-des-seigneurs-de-la-terre-i-un-bon-investisseme_t-19901224-Z03FF1.html
It seems not posible to copy paste some part of the text...anyway the author says: it seems evident that one can ask it at the "cadastre" or other governement tbranches...but nothing...from "bureau" to "bureau" and at the end nothing...the informations seems nearly a taboo....
but seemingly the Church and the Aristocracy has still a lot, but only infime parcels of their land property of the former times...and now also some captains of the industry...as in the example of Walloon Brabant (and also remember the family Wellesley (Wellington))


The same obscurity in France:
http://www.lefigaro.fr/placement/2008/05/15/05006-20080515ARTFIG00411-les-grands-proprietaires-prives-sont-rares-et-discrets-.php
But here it is more about "propriétaires forestiers" (forest owners)

Who owns France?
And about the 54.9 million d'hectares de France rural and forest...
http://www.lepoint.fr/actualites-societe/2007-01-24/les-vrais-proprietaires-de-la-france/920/0/84250
"Ces questions-là, nous les avons posées à tous les ministères compétents, à tous les organismes publics d'études, de recherche et de gestion du territoire. Réponses évasives, au mieux ; silence radio, au pis... A qui appartient la France ? Personne actuellement, au sein de l'administration de ce pays, n'est en mesure de le dire vraiment. On n'ignore rien de l'utilisation du sol, à l'hectare près, jusqu'au nombre d'épis de blé, de plants de vigne, d'arbres, de bâtiments hauts, bas, etc.
On connaît tout, au mètre carré près, du parc immobilier, de son découpage en logements et bureaux, des variations du marché, des prix, etc.
On dispose, en épluchant les comptes de la nation publiés chaque année par l'Insee, du décompte exact du patrimoine des ménages, des administrations, des sociétés... Mais savoir qui possède quoi ? La question est sur toutes les lèvres, la réponse, nulle part."

It's a satiric wording as only the French can do...
I let it to MM to translate it or give a survey in appropriate English...as I lack that special touch of English...


About the farms and the cultivable ground in the European Union (still with the UK)
Not from Eurostat but from an alternative green platform...I give it for what it is worth...
https://www.bastamag.net/Concentration-fonciere-3-des-plus
1% of the farms control 20% of the agriculture
3% controls 50% of the agriculture
80% controls 14.5 % of the agriculture
The about us:
https://www.bastamag.net/An-Independent-Information-Agency
But to put it in perspective...perhaps is that also likewise for the industrial patrimonium? 

And last but not least the greatest landowners of the world
https://www.journaldunet.com/economie/magazine/plus-grands-proprietaires.shtml
And I had from a Dutch site the same info (perhaps from the same source )

First Queen Elisabeth II!
With her mere 2,670,925,239 hectares not a small landowner...
Correct me when I am wrong MM...but in my opinion is that 26,709,252 square km or a square of 5,000 km on 5,000 km? That's nearly the size of Europe? Can that be?
The Saudi-Arabian king is also not mince with is rougly 200 million hectares?
And what about that worldly Pope of the Vatican with his rougly 70 million?

Kind regards from Paul.

Thanks for those French links Paul. I was also trying to do a "who owns France" list of the top landowners ... but it's not so easy is it, perhaps because there are no longer individual families holding huge estates. Nevertheless the French State, or at least French publically-owned national assets, like the state-owned forests, water reservoirs, nature reserves, historic monuments, etc.- as well as the land owned by utilities such EDF, SNCF, the highways, airports etc. - together own an enomous proportion of the land-area that is France ...... and even when taken individually, these publically-owned organisations still seem to account for considerably more land area than anything held by any individual person, family trust fund, or investment company.

I was particularly interested to see how much land the descendents of French nobles might still own post Revolution compared to during the Ancien Régime. Although they now have no official capacity there are still reckoned to be about 4,000 French families that can call themselves noble. At the time of the Revolution there were about 12,000 noble families, but despite the obvious pruning of heads during The Terror, there are still perhaps between 50,000 and 100,000 noble individuals in France - which is roughly the same as it was in the 1780s. The reason for this apparant anomaly is that, though many aristocrats disappeared in the Revolution and some family lines died out, afterwards in the 19th century there were five Kings/Emperors of France, each of whom created their own nobility, and so numbers were boosted again. At the time of the Revolution the nobility are estimated to have held estates comprising about one-fifth of the total land area of France, while the King, and to a lesser extent the Church, held most of the rest.

I've managed to find more detailed information concerning the ownership of real estate in Paris. According to the recent book 'Que vaut Paris. Histoire de la propriété immobilière' (How Much is Paris Worth. A History of Real Estate) by Patrice de Moncan and Gilles Ricour de Bourgies (publ. 2013):

• Before 1789 the Catholic Church owned 55% of Paris; it now owns just 0.3% – despite the widespread popular belief that the church is still a major property owner.
  
• The aristocracy pre-Revolution owned a further 35%; now they have officially virtually disappeared although obviously individual descendants of noble families still own property in Paris, perhaps quite a lot of property, but nothing like the duke of Westminster's immensly valuable holdings in London.
  
• At the turn of the 20th century, powerful and wealthy families (who had primarily made their fortunes through industry and banking etc rather than through inheritance) owned a staggering 90% of the city; today they have 16%, with the cost of renovating old buildings likely being behind the huge sell-off.
  
• From 2007 to 2012 the French state has sold off real estate throughout France to the tune of 4.5 billion euros, much of it in Paris, but it still owns a lot of the more valuable properties, for example; L’Elysée Palace -the President’s residence (valued at 1.17 billion euros), L’hôtel Matignon - the Prime Minister’s residence (1.28 billion euros),The Louvre Museum (7.54 billion euros), Le jardin de Luxembourg (10.35 billion euros) ... and many other national treasures.
  
• And of course the SNCF, La Poste, and utilities companies also own a lot of buildings and land.
  
• The City of Paris itself owns 7,800 buildings – around 9% of Paris – much of it as social housing, and it is still actively acquiring more.
  
• Foreign buyers have acquired prestige properties, especially in the 6th, 7th, 8th, and 16th arrondissements, and these sales to foreign nationals represented around 7% of real estate transactions in the capital in 2012.
  
• Ordinary co-owners of buidings (ie owners of appartments) own much of the rest. In 1950 there were only 6,000; today, there are almost one million co-owners, between them owning 48,439 buildings – which is over 50% of the capital’s real estate.
  

One specific French noble family I did find a bit about was that of Henri, Duc d'Orléans, the heir to the defunct French throne. When his father died in 1999 Henri and his 10 siblings discovered that, far from inheriting one of the greatest fortunes in Europe - as they had expected - the old duke seemed to have frittered away nearly all of it. After the Second World War the Orleans family was still the largest private landowner in France but over the years the late duke sold castles, houses, paintings and other family heirlooms, often for knockdown prices. His son, the current Duc, went to court to try and discover how his father and his advisers had managed to lose the lot, but it seems his father had long determined to put an end to his family's royal pretentions by destroying its fortune. A few weeks before he died, he told one of his children: "I will leave you nothing but hate." But don't feel too sorry for them - in 1999 the estate was still worth a bit over £7 million, although that was a fraction of what they had been anticipating.

I mentioned on another thread binge-watching Dennis Skinner's quips to Black Rod.  The year (sorry I can't remember which one) when the Queen was claiming to have suffered a difficult (for her) year and Old Joe Public was expected to help pay for the difficulties DS said "Why dun't she just sell up?"  and the year where the Queen became liable for some taxation chimed in "Has she paid her taxes?".  I remember the year that there was a fire at Hampton Court and some dignitary from the Conservative party had waxed lyrical about Hampton Court belonging to the country blah-de-blah-de-blah one comedian made a joke (this of course wasn't it Parliament) about wondering whether he was eligible t stay at Hampton Court next time he stayed in the London area as he was a member of the population of the country.

Meles meles wrote:

Thanks for those French links Paul. I was also trying to do a "who owns France" list of the top landowners ... but it's not so easy is it, perhaps because there are no longer individual families holding huge estates. Nevertheless the French State, or at least French publically-owned national assets, like the state-owned forests, water reservoirs, nature reserves, historic monuments, etc.- as well as the land owned by utilities such EDF, SNCF, the highways, airports etc. - together own an enomous proportion of the land-area that is France ...... and even when taken individually, these publically-owned organisations still seem to account for considerably more land area than anything held by any individual person, family trust fund, or investment company.

I was particularly interested to see how much land the descendents of French nobles might still own post Revolution compared to during the Ancien Régime. Although they now have no official capacity there are still reckoned to be about 4,000 French families that can call themselves noble. At the time of the Revolution there were about 12,000 noble families, but despite the obvious pruning of heads during The Terror, there are still perhaps between 50,000 and 100,000 noble individuals in France - which is roughly the same as it was in the 1780s. The reason for this apparant anomaly is that, though many aristocrats disappeared in the Revolution and some family lines died out, afterwards in the 19th century there were five Kings/Emperors of France, each of whom created their own nobility, and so numbers were boosted again. At the time of the Revolution the nobility are estimated to have held estates comprising about one-fifth of the total land area of France, while the King, and to a lesser extent the Church, held most of the rest.

I've managed to find more detailed information concerning the ownership of real estate in Paris. According to the recent book 'Que vaut Paris. Histoire de la propriété immobilière' (How Much is Paris Worth. A History of Real Estate) by Patrice de Moncan and Gilles Ricour de Bourgies (publ. 2013):

• Before 1789 the Catholic Church owned 55% of Paris; it now owns just 0.3% – despite the widespread popular belief that the church is still a major property owner.
  
• The aristocracy pre-Revolution owned a further 35%; now they have officially virtually disappeared although obviously individual descendants of noble families still own property in Paris, perhaps quite a lot of property, but nothing like the duke of Westminster's immensly valuable holdings in London.
  
• At the turn of the 20th century, powerful and wealthy families (who had primarily made their fortunes through industry and banking etc rather than through inheritance) owned a staggering 90% of the city; today they have 16%, with the cost of renovating old buildings likely being behind the huge sell-off.
  
• From 2007 to 2012 the French state has sold off real estate throughout France to the tune of 4.5 billion euros, much of it in Paris, but it still owns a lot of the more valuable properties, for example; L’Elysée Palace -the President’s residence (valued at 1.17 billion euros), L’hôtel Matignon - the Prime Minister’s residence (1.28 billion euros),The Louvre Museum (7.54 billion euros), Le jardin de Luxembourg (10.35 billion euros) ... and many other national treasures.
  
• And of course the SNCF, La Poste, and utilities companies also own a lot of buildings and land.
  
• The City of Paris itself owns 7,800 buildings – around 9% of Paris – much of it as social housing, and it is still actively acquiring more.
  
• Foreign buyers have acquired prestige properties, especially in the 6th, 7th, 8th, and 16th arrondissements, and these sales to foreign nationals represented around 7% of real estate transactions in the capital in 2012.
  
• Ordinary co-owners of buidings (ie owners of appartments) own much of the rest. In 1950 there were only 6,000; today, there are almost one million co-owners, between them owning 48,439 buildings – which is over 50% of the capital’s real estate.
  

One specific French noble family I did find a bit about was that of Henri, Duc d'Orléans, the heir to the defunct French throne. When his father died in 1999 Henri and his 10 siblings discovered that, far from inheriting one of the greatest fortunes in Europe - as they had expected - the old duke seemed to have frittered away nearly all of it. After the Second World War the Orleans family was still the largest private landowner in France but over the years the late duke sold castles, houses, paintings and other family heirlooms, often for knockdown prices. His son, the current Duc, went to court to try and discover how his father and his advisers had managed to lose the lot, but it seems his father had long determined to put an end to his family's royal pretentions by destroying its fortune. A few weeks before he died, he told one of his children: "I will leave you nothing but hate." But don't feel too sorry for them - in 1999 the estate was still worth a bit over £7 million, although that was a fraction of what they had been anticipating.

Meles meles, thank you very much for the details about France. You seem to have had as much trouble for finding details about France as I have had for Belgium...and yes you have found details about Paris as I found a lot about the grand propriétaires fonciers du "Brabant wallon"

"One specific French noble family I did find a bit about was that of Henri, Duc d'Orléans, the heir to the defunct French throne. When his father died in 1999 Henri and his 10 siblings discovered that, far from inheriting one of the greatest fortunes in Europe - as they had expected - the old duke seemed to have frittered away nearly all of it. After the Second World War the Orleans family was still the largest private landowner in France but over the years the late duke sold castles, houses, paintings and other family heirlooms, often for knockdown prices. His son, the current Duc, went to court to try and discover how his father and his advisers had managed to lose the lot, but it seems his father had long determined to put an end to his family's royal pretentions by destroying its fortune. A few weeks before he died, he told one of his children: "I will leave you nothing but hate." But don't feel too sorry for them - in 1999 the estate was still worth a bit over £7 million, although that was a fraction of what they had been anticipating."


About that Comte de Paris I did a lot of research in relation with the murder of Darlan during the Operation Torch in Northern Africa...even since 2007 as I see on the French site and even refering to a message on the BBC I see now...
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-le-comte-de-paris-1101514.html

http://www.empereurperdu.com/tribunehistoire/viewforum.php?f=12&start=150
http://www.empereurperdu.com/tribunehistoire/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=257


And conspiracy theories about the murder of Darlan..if I have time I will start a thread about it, as it was not only the short thread that I introduced on Tribune Histoire but I did  a lot more research for both the BBC and the French fora as about also Operation Torch...
As Dirk and LiR are interested in conspiracies...
And about theories...all kinds...
http://nationalpost.com/opinion/scott-van-wynsberghe-assassinated-on-christmas-eve
seems reasonable to me
https://barnesreview.org/who-ordered-the-death-of-french-admiral-darlan/
seems "wako"? to me
http://geoffroy.dastier.free.fr/index.htm
seems reasonable to me


Kind regards from Paul.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

I mentioned on another thread binge-watching Dennis Skinner's quips to Black Rod.  The year (sorry I can't remember which one) when the Queen was claiming to have suffered a difficult (for her) year and Old Joe Public was expected to help pay for the difficulties DS said "Why dun't she just sell up?"  and the year where the Queen became liable for some taxation chimed in "Has she paid her taxes?".  I remember the year that there was a fire at Hampton Court and some dignitary from the Conservative party had waxed lyrical about Hampton Court belonging to the country blah-de-blah-de-blah one comedian made a joke (this of course wasn't it Parliament) about wondering whether he was eligible t stay at Hampton Court next time he stayed in the London area as he was a member of the population of the country.

Lady,
spent my whole evening with the property of Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Orléans the ultimate successor of Hugo Capet. And I know i owe you still something about Alsace-Lorraine and the "malgré-nous" and we had it here in Belgium too during WWII in Eupen and Malmédy (die Ostkantone)
https://www.belgiumwwii.be/de/belgien-im-krieg/orte/ostkantone.html


Kind regards from Paul.

Meles meles,

"First Queen Elisabeth II!
With her mere 2,670,925,239 hectares not a small landowner...
Correct me when I am wrong MM...but in my opinion is that 26,709,252 square km or a square of 5,000 km on 5,000 km? That's nearly the size of Europe? Can that be?
The Saudi-Arabian king is also not mince with is rougly 200 million hectares?
And what about that worldly Pope of the Vatican with his rougly 70 million?"

I solved my question myself...of course is it a hoax...such things as for the "sun"...

https://www.quora.com/Does-Queen-Elizabeth-II-own-1-6-of-Earth%E2%80%99s-land
"She doesn't. End of the conversation.
I suspect that what you are actually referring to is "Crown Estate"/"Crown Property".
This does NOT belong to the Monarch personally, but instead "belongs" to the Crown that the Monarch embodies.
That said, the answer to your question is that Her Majesty is Queen of 16 nations, and two of those nations are Canada and Australia. Canada is the second largest country in the world, and Australia is the sixth! That's A LOT of land!
Between Canada and Australia, there are *VAST* amounts of "unclaimed" land that are held in trust for the Crown.  However, in the "real world", what this REALLY means is that it is held by the Governments of each country to do with as they see fit.
Thankfully, it has been largely decided to leave them as they are and preserve them for future generations."
So while it is incorrect to say that Her Majesty "owns" one sixth of all the land on Earth, it COULD be said that Her Majesty (that is, Her Majesty in right of each country as appropriate) holds a trust over those lands as she is the embodiment of the State."
And:
http://www.businessinsider.com/worlds-biggest-landowners-2011-3?international=true&r=US&IR=T

Kind regards from Paul.

Meles meles,

and about the real property of the Queen...
https://www.businessinsider.nl/how-much-of-the-uk-does-the-queen-own-2017-6/?international=true&r=UK

Kind regards from Paul.