Hacker News Reader

You mean seizure of land? That's quite a risky thing to do. Plenty of now 3rd world countries destroyed themselves doing that. If people can't trust the government to enforce property rights, then how can they invest in property safely? That could then limit investing in business that owns property.

Maybe it would be safe for the economy if it's done according to a law which is not retroactively applied to existing owners. Something like requiring new owners to be personally identified before they can even be granted ownership. Then there's no seizing required.

More like "bona vacantia". Or, if the UK had a meaningful property tax, a requirement to file said tax non-anonymously.

(The UK could also do with cadastral mapping to solve a different set of problems; available only in Scotland)

(Would the opposite of "anonymous" be "nonymous"?)

No, the word you're looking for is onymous[1].

The internal structure is an-onymous: c. 1600, "without a name;" 1670s, "published under no name, of unknown authorship," from Late Latin anonymus, from Greek anonymos "without a name," from an- "without" (see an- (1)) + onyma, Æolic[4] dialectal form of onoma "name" (from PIE root *no-men- "name").[2]

Onoma survives in onomatopoeia[3] (and other words).

[1] https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/onymous "Used Rarely"

[2] https://www.etymonline.com/word/anonymous

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onomatopoeia

[4] Aeolic Greek (/iːˈɒlɪk/; also Aeolian /iːˈoʊliən/, Lesbian or Lesbic dialect) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolic_Greek

In modern greek it would be eponymous.

I didn't mean to propose that, but I see the problem that land is _already_ owned anonymously.

Also, we (in the U.S.) already do this in limited circumstances. For example, if I don't pay my property taxes for long enough, my property will by auctioned by the state. My tax standing is publically reported from the tax assesor's database so that my neighbors can hunt for bargains.

Perhaps legislation could add ownership reporting requirements for future purchases, or require better identity reporting for future property tax payments.

That’d likely eliminate the scamola of a business known as “title insurance” as well.

Title insurance is an American problem; it's present in other jurisdictions, but most systems make it easy to determine if title is clear.

(England has its own craziness of chancel repair liability instead)

And crazy is definitely the right word: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chancel_repair_liability

I’ve just sold my property in the UK and at the advice of my solicitors took out easement insurance to guard against denial of access of the private road that leads to the house that no-one knows who owns (even though the local council maintain it).

I don't see how it can fairly be changed for existing owners without screwing them over. It's different with property tax defaults and eminent domain because there's existing law that people know about and can plan around. Not just "tell us who you are and get imprisoned in your own country for corruption or we'll take your house".

To go back to the whole "different rules apply to the rich and the poor", nobody would bat an eye if this were done as part of AML for poorer people. What about the person who took out $10k cash and is now subject to AML reporting if he wants to deposit it, would you say that we should re-tag all the bills so that we can know who took out money before the rule applied?

Of course not, that's absurd, you would have to put up with AML like everyone else. And to be clear, that's what we're discussing here - a form of money laundering reporting. No actual property is seized from someone who obeys the new laws, and all they need to do is disclose ownership.

The idea that this is somehow an onerous burden is just a reflexive boot-licking defense of the rich. They will be fine.

For what it's worth, I've taken out $10k in cash and deposited it about a month later. I assume that the bank had to do some paper work on the bank end, but I wasn't exposed to it at all.

> You mean seizure of land? That's quite a risky thing to do.

Not really, it happens all the time, see eminent domain and adverse possession, etc. It's generally viewed as against public policy for land to be left unused.

Perhaps they could assess special, onerous taxes on property without a clear owner, and require said owner(s) identify themselves clearly when they're paid. If they don't, the property could be seized to pay the taxes.

> You mean seizure of land? [...] Plenty of now 3rd world countries destroyed themselves doing that.

Didn't the South African government recently decided to do that? Taking white-owned farmland without compensation? We'll see how it goes.

You don't have to wait for that.

Just look what happened in Zimbabwe.

I'm interested how it goes there. I know what happened in Zimbabwe.

The UK government has no intention of making any effective changes to reveal the beneficial owners of property (although it makes a lot of noise about it to keep the "plebs" happy). Indeed after Brexit tax evasion and laundering the money of kleptocrats may be some of the few growth areas available.

If you want to find out what's really happening, I recommend reading Private Eye.

My state has that information available from the tax assessors office as well, however land can still be owned by a corporation and it can be slightly out of date and it's not clear who is actually responsible for the property and what it's status is if the corporation doesn't want you to find out. In my neighborhood, for example, there is some land still possibly owned by the developer, a hedge fund, and another company, but it has changed hands multiple times recently, often enough that there is little confidence in the current publicly reported documentation. They have used this to their advantage to avoid taking responsibility for HOA obligations that they are failing to meet. It takes a level of motivation to push through legal proceedings and a level of cooperation from the local government that quite simply, no one is willing to give. Even if one got that far, I'd imagine that the legal complexity of the various real estate contracts involve give them all plenty of ammunition to stall the process and suggest that somebody else may actually have responsibility for the problem until you give up. Tax assessor's information is not actually enough for the buck to stop with anyone.

Start squatting on it, the real owners will turn up pronto :)

I have a hunch their henchmen will turn up first.

Good point.

I would guess that said henchmen would need some sort of proof that they are acting on the authority of the rightful owner or else they would just be another group of squatters.

That's actually an interesting angle. I'm sure you weren't being entirely serious, but let's go there. I obviously can't be personally present a significant portion of the time, so my first thought it is to leave a substantial amount of personal property there, say, an RV. What stops them from having the vehicle towed such that it's my expense to retrieve it, or simply assuming ownership of the "abandoned" RV and pocketing the proceeds?

It's undeveloped land, so I suppose I could start planting vegetables on it. But as another commenter said, I'd bet they simply send henchman to destroy my work.

It was definitely tongue in cheek, the point was that it is land, they can't move it and defending their claim to the land visibly requires them to break cover.

Henchmen have higher ups.

In many places if you squat on a place long enough it becomes yours.

  defending their claim to the land visibly
  requires them to break cover.

I realise you're talking to TallGuyShort about HOAs, but when it comes to anonymously owned property in London (presumably including 221b Baker Street) things can be structured to avoid this.

What you do is have the building directly owned/managed by (something equivalent to) a Real Estate Investment Trust [1], then have 100% of the shares of that REIT owned by a company in BVI/Panama/Cayman Islands, where that company doesn't have to disclose its shareholders. Or if you have to disclose beneficial owners with more than 25% of shares, have 5 anonymous companies own 20% each, and claim you just don't know if those anonymous companies have the same ultimate owner.

Thus, the REIT exists to defend their claim to the land, collect rent, manage and maintain the property - just nobody knows who owns the REIT.

Nobody wants to eliminate the property-owned-and-managed-by-a-company-owned-by-other-companies structure, as it's how pension funds/retail investors invest in property. So it's a tough question how to regulate this properly.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REIT

How does KYC (know your customer) AML (anti-money laundering) law not apply here? Shouldn’t the REIT/employees of the REIT need to know who is paying them?

I’m not suggesting that we do away with the REIT + corps structure, but just require them to obey AML laws.

Dump trash in it. Solves a problem for you and sometimes governments enforce cleanliness.

> and sometimes governments enforce cleanliness.

Which can also lead to you being charged for unlawful dumping of trash, and if there happens to be a battery or other toxic/dangerous stuff in the trash, that can increase the fines.

You should read Progress and Poverty, a book that used to be a bestseller and well known to most intellectuals throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, but somehow has been forgotten. It was by Henry George - whose proposal was a single land tax, and of course the point is in theory that it’s easy to see who owns what. I have a copy and the accolades on the back read like a who’s who of world leaders, thinkers and poets.

Apparently ownership stakes under 25% are not reported, which could be used by persons of any means to hide ownership. It’s a weird loophole that has nothing to do with the wealthy vs the little guy. It’s available to anyone willing to fill out a bunch of paperwork.

I wonder if changing this from a percentage to an amount (say, the $10,000 mentioned above) would close this loophole.

Sounds like Chesterton’s fence. Would you want your NVIDIA holdings a public record?

In several nordic countries, all citizen's tax filings are public record.

I certainly don't see anything wrong with it.

Ok, let me explain:

You are in Nordic country N, and your filings show your income of $X (a high number). Your relatives A,B,C live in country R, which features large amount of mobsters. Said mobsters learn of the value of X via N's public info system, and make lives of A,B,C uncomfortable or dangerous or downright kidnap them to receive a chunk of $X. And no, A,B,C cannot always move for a variety of reasons.

You're not wrong. In fact, as a human, you're very right. It's possible such a law would have very negative externalities.

However, a nation really only owes loyalty to its people. You can't stop an otherwise positive because some people might get hurt. We'd get nothing done in that case.

How are public tax filings a positive?

It provides transparency and auditability, just like how nearly all court records are public. There are many retail businesses I worked with in the past that were tax cheats, gave up reporting 'em since I couldn't consistently tell what they did and did not report. Sometimes sales tax from the 6th register (which was on a separate database) would be reported, other times not. I know they're still pocketing $5k to $10k a month in sales tax at one business.

We're talking about personal tax records. I don't see how personal tax records being transparent provides any upside. It only paints a target on your back for criminals.

How about this one, when I joined a startup the founder had made certain claims and impressions about who he was, the funding he was putting in, etc.

As it turns out this man was a liar, confidence man, and tax cheat. Had there been open tax records, I could have (in)validated some of his claims and saved myself severals years of struggle and many thousands in subsequent debt.

It's not just for criminals to leverage. It's for the common man to use to reduce information asymmetry and, this one might be a bit dystopian, but help self-police that everyone pays their share.

That's already a potential issue today, and these societies have decided to do it anyway, because they care more about this than your potential risks.

Gold diggers

Why do people have 'property rights'? They're an artificial construct as much as government is.

If you want to monopolise an area of land, you need to pay your fair share. Perhaps for this building the land may cost society (through externalities) £2m a year, so unless that is paid (by whoever), the land gets repossessed and sold to pay the outstanding tax bill.

Far more equitable way of funding society than charging those who work for a living.

A land value taxation ensures that whoever the 'owner' is, the cost to society of that owner monopolising the land is paid.