
Who Owns England? - ascorbic
http://map.whoownsengland.org/
======
panglott
"Who owns land is one of England's most closely-guarded secrets."

This seems really strange to me. Why should this be the case?

Some interesting information at their blog
[https://whoownsengland.org/2017/01/01/who-owns-england-
what-...](https://whoownsengland.org/2017/01/01/who-owns-england-what-we-know-
so-far-where-next/) [https://whoownsengland.org/2016/11/10/why-we-must-open-
up-th...](https://whoownsengland.org/2016/11/10/why-we-must-open-up-the-land-
registry/)

~~~
gbuk2013
Technically, the Crown owns the land. Everyone else owns an estate in this
land. This distinction only really becomes important if you do something silly
like die intestate (without a will) and without any heirs, in which case title
reverts back to the Crown. Or if you find oil, gas or coal under your house in
which case you don't get any of it. ;)

~~~
throwaway9980
The term for absolute ownership of land is called Allodial title. It exists
practically nowhere.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allodial_title](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allodial_title)

~~~
jacoblambda
Non mobile link:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allodial_title](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allodial_title)

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twic
There are all sorts of interesting things in this dataset. I live north of
Finsbury Park in London. There's a big, well-established Turkish community
here, embedded in the middle of decaying Victorian middle-class suburbs. You
can trace the boundaries of it by the countries in which overseas companies
are registered: in the Turkish area, they're registered in Cyprus, and in the
more white areas, they're registered in the British Virgin Islands!

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sjclemmy
I have come to the conclusion that the only way there could ever be any
improvement in the way us Brits distribute our wealth (and by that I mean more
equitably) is to have land reform. Nobody ever talks about this.

I also think that unless some event happens that serves to dismantle (to a
greater or lesser extent) the existing power structure, this will never
happen.

~~~
mattgibson
> Nobody ever talks about this.

I've always assumed that this is because those who think land is just another
free market commodity (it isn't) don't realise there's anything to talk about,
so they keep quiet.

However, those that understand realise they can use land to bypass the free
market and get a constant flow of free money through rent. They then routinely
lie about it so they get to carry on.

My hope is that new technology such as the linked map of land ownership will
lower the bar to learning how land works far enough that it becomes hard to
lie about it effectively.

Land is a monopoly, but most people are not even aware that economists
describe it as such, let alone knowing how the monopoly works. I think once
that begins to change, we will see reform. More of an education issue than
anything else.

~~~
smiytyhtobf
"Land is a monopoly". What?

~~~
gchadwick
Seems quite straight-forward. The concept of owning land is the concept of
giving someone a total monopoly on the use of that land.

~~~
weberc2
Isn't this more or less true of most kinds of property?

~~~
mattgibson
No. Other forms of property can a) be manufactured and b) be moved. Land is
unique in that both are impossible. As result, each piece of land is unique
because of what it's close to (not what it is, as with other forms of
property). That means that if you want an alternative equivalent product from
another supplier, it's impossible. All the other bits of land are in different
locations, and you can't get a new bit from a factory.

This means that if you want to a) live walking distance from your parents
(free childcare, so your partner can work and you get double income) and b) be
able to commute to your place of work, there are certain number of qualifying
pieces of land and no more. If someone already owns them all, you have no
other choice but to buy or rent one of those. No entrepreneur can undercut
high land prices with a cheaper equivalent, therefore it's a monopoly.

~~~
jessriedel
Land is different in many important ways, but this does not make it a
monopoly; you do your cause a disservice to co-opt that language. Something
doesn't fail to be a market just because it's not a commodity (where the
things being bought and sold are identical/interchangeable). The art market is
a market even if there is only one _Guernica_.

Yes, of course, in the limit where there is particular item for which there is
no substitutes, this approaches a monopoly. Hence, _certain_ pieces of land
can roughly be described as monopolies, as can, say, the Mona Lisa. But this
doesn't make it reasonable to characterize most land as a monopoly. Most land
is substitutable, for most purposes and for most buyers, by different land.
The unrealistic supposition that "someone already owns them all" in your
hypothetical highlights this. How often can anyone say "I rented a
house/apartment for which there were _zero_ feasible alternatives from another
seller"? Almost never.

~~~
mattgibson
A monopoly doesn't mean there are no alternatives. It means that the process
of competitive undercutting of prices does not operate. Consider a price
fixing cartel. There are alternative products, but it is still a monopoly.

I didn't explain the example I used very well. In the case you mention:
renting an apartment, there are indeed always alternative locations. However,
that does not mean the market is competitive. The key difference is that from
your perspective, these bits of land are equivalent, but from other people's
perspective, they are not. One of those locations that you may consider to be
nothing special may be another person's number one choice because it's close
to something they value, which you don't care about. That could be friends,
family, work, amenities, businesses that your business depends on, raw
materials, transport links, etc, etc. Each buyer has unique needs and each
location has a unique set of things it's close to. That means that the
seller/landlord does not need to bother attempting to attract your business in
a competitive way as this other person for whom that location is their best
option (and likely others too) will already have approached them. In effect,
each unique location is an auction, with a different group of buyers
interested (at different prices) each time. This only happens because land
doesn't move. If it did move, then the locations would not be unique and the
market would work more as you imply it would.

The outcome is that each piece of land is sold based on the highest bid
offered by any buyer. A characteristic of a monopoly. This is the opposite of
a free market, where things are sold as a result of the lowest price offered
by any seller.

~~~
jessriedel
I'm happy to agree that "all sellers in a market perfectly coordinate on
price" is functionally equivalent to "there is only one seller in the market",
and that this qualifies as a monopoly. My comment doesn't hinge on that
obvious point. (Indeed I said "alternatives _from another seller_ ", not just
"alternatives", and it's pretty clear that nothing changes if all the sellers
perfectly coordinate as one.)

Your explanation doesn't save your example. It will always be the case that,
for any given buyer in a non-commodity market, one choice is better than all
the other. (If the products are not identical, one will essentially always be
at least a bit better than the others for some reason.) However, this doesn't
approach a monopoly _except as the alternatives become arbitrarily bad in
comparison_ (i.e., do not function as substitutes). Yes, in this limit, it's a
monopoly, but this is almost never the case.

Your remaining comments imply that anything sold at auction is a monopoly and
not a free market. You also incorrectly ascribe this to lack of mobility:

> In effect, each unique location is an auction, with a different group of
> buyers interested (at different prices) each time. This only happens because
> land doesn't move.

Art, used cars, items on eBay, etc., are all products that move (unlike land)
yet "each...is an auction, with a different group of buyers interested (at
different prices) each time". Again: the key mistake is that you are
conflating all _non-commodities_ as _monopolies_.

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TazeTSchnitzel
This is tangential to their goal, but this looks like a promising start for
mapping _Scotland 's_ land ownership, which is notoriously inequal (more than
half the land is in the hands of less than 500 people).

~~~
falsedan
Do you mean, get land ownership details from the Registers of Scotland? This
OP project is for England and Wales only; Scottish land ownership is tracked
by a separate organisation with better transparency rules. edit: they still
charge £24 per property ownership lookup…

I would hardly describe the landed estates of Scotland as 'notoriously
unequal'; Much of the land in England is sold as _leasehold_ , such that your
house in Lambeth will revert to the Archbishop of Canterbury in 99 years
unless some legal procedure (and fee, and solicitor's consideration) is paid
(usually when selling). In Scotland, the leasehold is nigh-non-existent, and
the standard ownership is a freehold (the property owner own the property in
perpetuity).

I think this project is to highlight the rent-seeking behaviour of the
leaseholders.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
It's unequal insofar as so much of the country is owned by such a small number
of people, Scotland's supposedly the worst in the West in that respect.

~~~
falsedan
Surely Lichtenstein, Monaco, San Marino, etc. would be worse, and I know the
Papal State has fewer landholders…

~~~
jpatokal
The relevant figure is the proportion of owners to population, not the
absolute numbers.

~~~
falsedan
What an exciting new development in the classification of this group! Could
one say, those examples are no comparison to the true state of land ownership
in Scotland?

That's a fallacy with an entirely-appropriate name.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Your comparison was a straw man in the first place.

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olivermarks
Offshore companies own a lot of the valuable real estate in the UK, as
explored by Private Eye in 2015 [http://www.private-
eye.co.uk/registry](http://www.private-eye.co.uk/registry)

~~~
ascorbic
This map uses the dataset obtained by Private Eye

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prawnsalad
Says that I need a newer browser to see the map while I'm using the latest
chrome, 58.

~~~
matthewowen
You probably don't have WebGL enabled, probably because of some annoying
hardware incompatibility. This site seems to use MapboxGL, which doesn't fall
back to Mapbox Classic.

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arethuza
I can strongly recommend the excellent book "The Poor Had No Lawyers" for a
look at the land ownership situation in Scotland:

[http://www.andywightman.com/poor-had-no-
lawyers](http://www.andywightman.com/poor-had-no-lawyers)

Edit: Another book I recommend to give a taste of the kinds of stuff that went
on here is "Donald McLeod's Gloomy memories in the Highlands of Scotland" \- a
first hand account of the Clearances:

[https://www.amazon.co.uk/Donald-McLeods-memories-
Highlands-S...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Donald-McLeods-memories-Highlands-
Scotland/dp/1178001237)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Clearances](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Clearances)

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nwah1
Land by value is a much more interesting question, than by acreage. Urban
cores can be worth hundreds of thousands of times more, for the same amount of
area.

~~~
Retric
100,000 * farmland at ~5+k per acre is over 1/2 billion per acre which seems
off for just land without buildings.

~~~
colanderman
There is a 1 acre condemned two-story garage adjacent to the skyscraper in
which I work in downtown Boston. The land it sits on is valued by the assessor
at $32 million. I would not be surprised to see an acre in say NYC or Tokyo go
for 10× that figure.

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marcoscarceles
It's really interesting to see how many oaverseas companies own land in London
and end up being in British Virgin Islands, Isle of Man, Gibraltar and other
tax havens.

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niklasrde
The last issue of National Geographic (for the UK Amazon Prime subscriber
available for free in Prime Reading) had a map of public land ownership in
Scotland, and some NatGeo style impact reporting on it. Deer stalking, people,
families, etc. Worth a read!

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tomelders
Interesting. The Hatfield Moors near Doncaster has a lot of land that is (or
at least used to be) signposted as MOD. But this map shows it as "Other
Government".

I grew up around there, and there's always been odd stuff about the place.
Like this now abandoned tower, that used to always have a military presence.

[https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.5536807,-0.9773292,3a,75y,...](https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.5536807,-0.9773292,3a,75y,265.99h,89.98t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sTKCEGfjbMo0GosBHoWpSRQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656)

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twic
Judging by the size of the captions, Sealand is a more prominent place than
Colchester!

Okay that may not be remarkable if you're not from East Anglia.

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Lerc
An interesting implication from this is there may be unowned land. Some areas
may be owned by multiple people where each believes themselves to be the sole
owner.

Who becomes the final arbitor in such cases? The cynic in me would think that
there's a the-crown-gets-it fallback.

~~~
goodcanadian
Undoubtedly, the crown owns any "unowned" land. In cases where there is
disputed title, the courts are the arbiter. There are probably not too many
disputed titles anymore since the introduction of land registry was in the
18th century.

~~~
m-i-l
Unowned land typically reverts to the occupier rather than The Crown. When I
moved to London I used to live in Shoreditch, and there were many crumbling
down buildings and second world war bomb sites, including one next to me that
had been occupied by a rag-and-bone man for many years. When a developer
wanted to buy the land for redevelopment, the original owner could not be
found, and ownership was eventually reverted to the rag-and-bone man. There
are many such stories of squatters inheriting valuable homes, e.g.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_George_Weiss](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_George_Weiss)
.

~~~
goodcanadian
Thank you. I am not British, and I had forgotten that particular fact.
Technically, the concept of "adverse possession" exists in Canada, as well,
but in practice it doesn't really come up (either eviction proceedings occur
quite quickly or in the case of a small piece of land--a fence in the wrong
place, perhaps--the owner may "give permission" which is enough to maintain
ownership rights). I suspect that it does not come up often in the UK, either.
Post-WW2 was a bit of a special case.

Anyway, the land in your example was not really "unowned." Rather the legal
owner was different than the occupier, and turned out to be missing. I was
referring more to the fact that the Crown is the ultimate legal owner of
(essentially) all of the land in the UK (and Canada and other countries for
that matter). Anything that does not have any other legal owner is definitely
owned by the Crown. What would be called government land in the US is called
Crown land in Canada (and presumably in the UK?).

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Yizahi
Churches are suspiciously absent. Aren't they the biggest landowners
everywhere?

~~~
ascorbic
The map isn't supposed to be comprehensive. They don't have the data from the
Church of England, mainly because it's not subject to FoI. But no, churches
are big landowners but far from the biggest.

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erikb
So mostly government, or public service companies.

I think this is not even discussion worthy as long as there is not one big
rich guy or purely private corp owning a lot. The only thing presented in the
map getting close is the crown.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
When I visited some Oxbridge colleges the story was that the richest colleges
owned land stretching from one coast to the other in a continuous band.

The are still families with estates that own the associated village, I gather.

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cafard
De Tocqueville wrote that land ownership was for the rich only in England,
because of the difficulty of ascertaining and defending title. This would have
been around 1840, I suppose.

~~~
tialaramex
Title registration existed (though it was not by any means common) in England
in 1840. Today you can't sell land unless it's registered, which is how this
site was created.

However many US states still don't have registration, because a thriving
industry of "title insurance" companies depends upon them not having it so as
to scare people into buying this otherwise useless insurance.

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tomjohnneill
If you added Oxford and Cambridge Universities to this, that would be really
interesting. I've always been under the impression they own a huge amount of
land around the country.

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pc2g4d
My county's parcel map is public and names an owner for every bit of property
in the county. I guess that's now how it works everywhere.

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iDemonix
Nice project, I was aware MoD had a good presence around Reading as I have
friends that work there, I wasn't aware how big a presence it was.

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Zekio
Am I the only one getting a warning about that I should use chrome to see the
map while using chrome?

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muninn_
Doesn't support Safari apparently

~~~
InitialLastName
> Sorry, you need to use a newer browser to see the map

Or Chrome 58.0.3029.110, evidently.

~~~
SAI_Peregrinus
Or Firefox 53.0.3. uBlock/uMatrix disabled.

Clearly we need browsers from the future to actually see the map.

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FrankenPC
This shows me how little I knew. I thought the majority of land was owned by
the royalty.

~~~
wavefunction
Do you mean the aristocracy? You might be right.

~~~
lucaspiller
A lot of that is public knowledge, but not on any data sets (I'd assume
because most land registry records are still on paper). For example, near
where I grew up a whole village is owned by aristocracy:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Littlebredy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Littlebredy)

It was sold in 1797 to the current family, who was a wealthy banker, so
they've always been like this? :D

~~~
tialaramex
All of the Land Registry is computerised. If you can point at a precise piece
of property you can go online, right now, to their site and pay them a few
quid for a PDF of the data. If you need to show it to a court of law (e.g. to
prove who owns something in court) you can pay a bit more and get a physical
piece of paper issued which the court will accept as a substitute for a person
from the Register showing up in person and telling them who legally owns it.

However, firstly (least importantly) not all land in England is registered.
About 10-15% isn't registered. Registration is compulsory for new transfers
today, but there are a large tracts of land whose owner hasn't changed for
decades or even centuries, registration offers some benefits, but they're not
obliged to register unless they want to transfer the property.

Secondly, the paperwork may just say a place is owned by a corporation in a
tax haven. Knowing the land my building is on is owned by "Property Holding
Corp Sierra Sixty Eighteen" in the British Virgin Islands is almost exactly
the same as not knowing who owns it.

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ctrlaltdestroy
Don't know much about England. Does Crown Estate mean the royal family?

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ForFreedom
Who owns the Reserve Bank of UK?

~~~
ascorbic
The Bank of England is owned by the government, specifically the "Government
Legal Department".

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root-z
"who owns england?" and then show Scotland too. how typical.

~~~
alistairjcbrown
And Wales; it seems to show data across Great Britain

~~~
falsedan
might have titled it, 'who owns Great Britain?', and avoided being labeled as
'typical'

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nepotism2016
Either the author doesn't know England is not Britain or the domain wasn't
available. Scotland and Wales are a different country to England

~~~
rejschaap
They know:

"The map also displays some data for Wales and Scotland, where landowners'
data includes this; our project is focused on England."

~~~
nepotism2016
So the domain wasn't available

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m3kw9
The royal family there that has military there owns England

