Jan 21st, 2019: England & Wales, Who Owns It?

[xoxoxoBruce]

It seems nobody knows who owns about 15% (about 5.2 million acres) of England and Wales.
That’s misleading though, every bit is owned by someone, and someone knows who owns each piece, but
there is nobody who knows who all the owners are, and what they own.
200 years ago buying and selling land was complicated for lack of a central registry, but it provided lots of
work(income) for lawyers who fought to keep it that way.
150 years ago a central registry was established but few bothered because it was difficult and the lawyers liked that.

Registration on sale did not finally become compulsory everywhere for nearly a century, on 1 December 1990 – “the day,” one Chief Land Registrar wrote ecstatically, “all my predecessors had dreamt of”
In 1998, the Blair government also made registration compulsory when land was inherited, as well as when it was sold. This speeded up progress, along with a push by Land Registry to get existing landowners to register.
In early 2005, the area of the country registered was under 50%; as of today, it’s just over 85%.

While Land Registry has committed to comprehensive registration by 2030, it has no powers to enforce it, progress has slowed in the past few years, and it is unclear how it can achieve 100% coverage.
Here at Who Owns England, we think one simple solution would bring a great deal of land onto the register at a stroke: the government should require all land to be registered, with details of its beneficial owner, before it can receive farm subsidies.
This change would not only simplify planning and conveyancing, it is fair: if public money is used to support and improve land, we should know who benefits from it.
Happily, this proposal has been put forward as an amendment to the current Agriculture Bill by Caroline Lucas MP, with support from the Royal Town Planning Institute.

link

[Carruthers]

Thanks for posting that, Bruce.

I knew that new properties and unregistered properties when sold, had to be registered, but I didn't realise that registration had become compulsory for inherited properties.
I had a look at the map in the linked article and was surprised at how much farm land has escaped.
Often it is owned by a company registered outside the UK for tax purposes and then rented back to the occupier who is the sole shareholder of the company.
It's interesting that a link between registration and agricultural subsidies is being proposed.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Yeah, I though that would interest and maybe even affect you. I was surprised the central government doesn't have a better handle on this considering all the claims that the UK is an oppressive socialist nanny state.

[Carruthers]

Since my reply it has occurred to me that linking agricultural subsidies to compulsory land registration is unlikely to be straightforward.
Many farms have land on long term lease so who owns it and who farms it are not necessarily the same.
No doubt any such measures to sort out the problem will involve an over priced IT contract that will never work anyway.

[xoxoxoBruce]

That was only one of the ways to force registration though, any transfer of ownership, sale, inheritance, etc will also. Eventually the state will win.

[Happy Monkey]

Jarndyce and Jarndyce

[Gravdigr]

I thought Liz owned it all.

[Diaphone Jim]

A while back we had a thread (which I can't find) about Avebury, which is often called a mini-Stonehenge.
Both old stone sites are in Wiltshire and I remembered poking around the area with satellite/terrain maps.
They are microcosms of today's map and show the monumental task of unraveling land ownership in this half of the island.
Google "Stonehenge" click on the map link that comes up and go to "satellite."
Look especially to the west and south. Zoom in and out.

Maybe Carruthers can give us an estimate how many of the hundreds of fields in an area are likely to be under the same owner or family.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Gravdigr

I thought Liz owned it all.

Actually some of her land(crown land) isn't registered.

[Carruthers]

Originally Posted by Diaphone Jim

A while back we had a thread (which I can't find) about Avebury, which is often called a mini-Stonehenge.
Both old stone sites are in Wiltshire and I remembered poking around the area with satellite/terrain maps.
They are microcosms of today's map and show the monumental task of unraveling land ownership in this half of the island.
Google "Stonehenge" click on the map link that comes up and go to "satellite."
Look especially to the west and south. Zoom in and out.

Maybe Carruthers can give us an estimate how many of the hundreds of fields in an area are likely to be under the same owner or family.

That's a bit of a difficult one, Jim.

A typical family farm would have been about 250 acres but consolidation has taken place over the years and you often find that supermarkets, pension funds etc are now the owners of much larger holdings with professional management in place.
Equally they could be large estates in the hands of the same family since time immemorial.

A big however...

Much of the land in Wiltshire is owned by the Ministry of Defence and is used for army training particularly on Salisbury Plain to the north of Larkhill.
It wouldn't surprise me if much more of the land in the area was owned by the MoD and leased out to farming interests.

Google Maps Link

Who owns Britain: Top UK landowners

ETA...

On the subject of stone circles, sometimes they are not always what they seem:

An Aberdeenshire stone circle initially thought to be thousands of years old has been identified as a modern replica.

An investigation into the site at the parish of Leochel-Cushnie found the stones to be about 20 years old.

It was originally thought to be the site of a recumbent stone circle - until the man who built it came forward.

The findings sparked excitement among experts and were widely reported.

They were initially celebrated as an authentic recumbent stone circle by Adam Welfare of Historic Environment Scotland and Aberdeenshire Council's Archaeology Service.

Further archaeological analysis of the stones was being conducted when a former owner of the farm contacted Mr Welfare to say he had built the stone circle in the 1990s.

Neil Ackerman, historic environment record assistant at Aberdeenshire Council, said the development was "disappointing", but hoped the site would still be appreciated.

He said: "I hope the stones continue to be used and enjoyed - while not ancient it is still in a fantastic location and makes for a great feature in the landscape.

"These types of monument are notoriously difficult to date."

Recumbent stone circles were constructed about 3,500 to 4,500 years ago and are unique to the north east of Scotland.

Their defining feature is a large horizontal stone flanked by two upright stones, usually situated between the south-east to south-west of the circle.

LINK

[xoxoxoBruce]

The RSPB is bullshit, you can't poop on their property, but they can (and do) poop on yours.

[Gravdigr]

The rocks are 20 yrs old?

[lumberjim]

Rough paper route

[xoxoxoBruce]

Since Margaret Thatcher entered Downing Street in 1979, and continuing all the way to the present day, the state has been selling public land to the private sector. It has sold vast quantities — some 2 million hectares, or about 10 per cent of the entire British land mass…my best estimate…is that, at today’s prices, the land that has been sold is likely to be worth something in the order of £400 billion.

link