Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax

It helps settle minor arguments between property lines where fences existed for 50 years but the true line was not on the fence line.

Charging money for insurance against an event that is impossible is, i believe, a criminal offence in the UK.

There are similar stories in other countries.

There's nothing more permanent than a temporary government plan.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-swiss-bunker-idUSTRE7B01R...

So there you are. Happy to be of no assistance whatsoever!

I wonder how "to expel" ends up being "a short piece of land"...

Is the church exempt from property tax in Germany?

If so this sounds like a return to 'mortmain' principle of middle ages which caused a lot of conflict between government and church historically:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortmain

England developed quicker than the rest of Europe because the King limited the accumulation of tax exempt real estate by the church. The church was essentially largest absentee corporate land holder in Europe. It left large quantities of land vacant and did not contribute public fees towards infrastructure improvements.

It is a major factor why Blacks have lost ownership of farmland in the United States. Rather than try to explain it myself, here is an excerpt from "Mine!" by Jacob Heller and James Salzman:

> Currently, Black farmers constitute less than 1 percent of American farmers, and Black families continue to lose farms at a rate three times that of whites. The cause of this dramatic farm loss starts with inheritance law, in particular the consequences for family ownership when someone dies without making a will. Many poor Black farmers in the South were suspicious of local white lawyers, and for good reason, so they never made wills. This suspicion continues today, even among some wealthy Black people. Aretha Franklin and Prince could well have afforded the very best attorneys, yet both passed away without making wills. Overall, three-quarters of Black people do not have wills, more than double the percentage of whites.

> The result for Black-owned land in the Southeast is that over a quarter is now heir property, averaging eight co-owners, five of whom live outside the region. Amazingly, more land in Mississippi is owned by Black people living in Chicago than by those living in Mississippi itself. …

> Inheritance law imposes enormous costs on Black people—indeed, on anyone who does not write a will. When you die without a will, the state splits ownership among people the law designates as heirs, in a specified priority: spouses and children, grandchildren, parents, siblings, and then more remote relatives.

> Partition sales … are the primary way that most heir property is lost. Partition sales are not just of historical interest. Across the South, heir property currently makes up a third of remaining Black-owned farmland—roughly 3.5 million acres worth about $30 billion. …

> In 1887 John Brown bought eighty acres of land in Rankin County, Mississippi. He was part of the great wave of freed slaves who invested their life savings in farmland. … When he died in 1935, he did not leave a will. Ownership of his land split among his wife and nine children. In time they all died, also without wills, so the land was split further among grandchildren. … In 1978 Ruth Brown asked a court to divide the farm so she would own her share of the land outright—a manageable forty-five acres out of John’s original eighty. The other sixty-six Brown heirs would still co-own the balance, in shares ranging from 1/18th of the farm down to a tiny 1/19,440th. The court agreed to partition the parcel, but not by physically dividing the land. Instead, the judge ordered the entire farm sold and the money partitioned among the heirs according to their ownership fractions.

> As often happens in such forced partition sales, a single outside company was the only bidder. In Brown’s case, it was a local white-owned lumber company that wanted to cut the timber.

> Even though the family collectively valued the farm far above its auction price, neither Brown nor any other heir placed a bid. Why? Partly because state law often requires the bid to be fully or substantially paid in cash on auction day, a rule that makes bidding impossible for most ordinary owners. Partly because there was no simple way for the Brown heirs to organize a joint family bid that pulled together resources from the scattered owners. Many heirs did not even know they were owners. And no single Brown heir could top the lumber company’s lowball bid. This is commonplace. When a judge orders land auctioned on courthouse steps, the deal is final, even though the price is usually far below what is considered fair market value in an ordinary transaction.

However, Italy also abolished all noble titles with the fall of the monarchy in 1946 -- I would have also expected that fiefs and any associated claims had been extinguished at the same time...

[1]: https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usucapione

Even in higher property value areas I would be surprised to see a tax delinquency action taken after just a few years. The administrative cost is substantial.

The Dutch colonial system, continued in some form for a period of time. I’m afraid I’m ignorant of the details and complexity of land policy as the English, the pre-Constitutional US and current US government took over. Adding to the complexity, New York has had at least 4 constitutions in the post-colonial era!

There’s similar examples in the US — Baltimore has or had land rents from the British colonial era.

Personally it’s a fascinating subject to me, and if I was a history professor, I would have probably studied it! Alas, I’m not.

I grew up on land in the Bay Area that formerly belonged to the Ranchero de las Pulgas, and now I live in the east bay. I don't remember the name of the Ranchero here, but much of it had already been sold off to yankee traders before 1846. In both cases after annexation the widows controlling the remaining land were ripped-off by shyster lawyers. IIRC in one or both cases the widow's own lawyer! This despite the fact the family of Ranchero de las Pulgas had thrown in with the American cause during the Mexican American War.

If I have grazing rights on land that someone else owns, but don't actually graze there for decades and a new owner doesn't know about those rights, I can't then come back mad that his new fence infringes on the right that I've never asserted and he's not aware of.

> Today, the Queen still has ownership of all swans in the UK except in one small corner of the British Isles - the Orkney Isles.

> Under Udal Law, the ancient Norse system of inheritance and law, which the Viking settlers brought to Orkney, the swan is the property of the people, rather than the Crown.

> The case was proven in 1910 by a Kirkwall lawyer who, accompanied by his friend, the Procurator-Fiscal, went out to Harray Loch and shot a swan. The case went to the High Court and the Crown lost.

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20160725172726/http://www.scotsm...

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

Rather make that "no country other than the US and UK+Commonwealth countries". These two countries are probably the only ones in the world that haven't suffered any kind of comprehensive revolution in the last 100 years, and it shows.

Not just in the absurd amount of precedence cases or the existence of "case law" in general, but also in issues that directly impact the functioning of democracy (i.e. US voting being on Tuesdays because back 200 years ago Sunday was for church visits, Monday for traveling on horseback to the voting booth and Wednesday back home - made sense back then, nowadays it serves as a very effective tool to disenfranchise poor people from voting) or threaten the foundations of the existence of life (hundreds years old water claims that nowhere near closely reflect the actual cost of the water, leading to farmers and Nestle running unsustainable operations just "because they're allowed" without thinking if what they're doing can permanently destroy aquifers).

Every other country has had all that historical baggage unceremoniously dropped.

There are millions dead in between the "ideals" of the Revolution and the later Republics you skipped over.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleonic_Wars

>Historians have explored how the Napoleonic wars became total wars. Most historians argue that the escalation in size and scope came from two sources. First was the ideological clash between revolutionary/egalitarian and conservative/hierarchical belief systems. Second was the emergence of nationalism in France, Germany, Spain, and elsewhere that made these "people's wars" instead of contests between monarchs.[138] Bell has argued that even more important than ideology and nationalism were the intellectual transformations in the culture of war that came about through the Enlightenment.[139] One factor, he says, is that war was no longer a routine event but a transforming experience for societies—a total experience.

And I do note that there's obligation to the Baron's lord. Doing an appeal there is another route.

Because the only alternative in this case is the outright theft.

>"there is no implied right or obligation of any sort."

Sorry but there is implied obligation. I totally expect to get some services in return for money taken from me and I suspect I am not alone. For experiment try sending part of government that does actual services for constituents for a year long vacation and see what happens.