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Sounds to me like in the UK you cant truly own land if the government can just decide it belongs to someone else.


> cant truly own land if the government can just

This is mostly how private property works in practice, everywhere.


In civilized countries, it requires a specific decree or order by some government body, possibly after appeals.

Not just random clerk writing a line in a book when random stranger comes and tells they own a piece of land and are going to sell it.


> it requires a specific decree or order by some government body

That person is a random clerk

> possibly after appeals

I can 100% gaurantee that this case goes to court (if it is not settled to the now previous owners satisfaction).

I also suspect that the original owner will come out on top, by likely more than the 150k that their 'house' was worth.


Only thing I can think of is eminent domain. Here it using it requires either a specific decree by the national government (as in, the prime minister), zoning plan approved by the elected municipal government, or in some limited cases, apparently involving electric power lines, an agency. The owner is to be informed of the proceedings before they take effect.

The random clerk does not get to do write off your property belonging to someone else, unless your elected representative had a change voice an opinion in a proceedings where a clear public decision by the elected representatives to specifically take away someone's property was made.


Pretty much true everywhere.

It’s not like you can take anything with you when you’re dead, owning materials is really just a societal construct no matter which way you slice it.


Possession is a physical/real property of the universe.

Ownership is a legal abstraction/construct.


Being allowed to possess something (instead of being drug off kicking and screaming by the cops) is also a societal/legal construct.


It is a societal/legal construct brough up from the historical experience (eg. if a caveman built himself a hammer, they possessed it as long as they took good care of it).

We've redefined what "taking good care of something" means for things you possess, and we made elaborate social/legal constructs to clearly define boundaries of possession.

But this is present even in the animal world, even when it comes to "property" (wolfs mark their territory, so do lions, bees go back to their own hives, etc).


>Possession is a physical/real property of the universe

This assertion immediately falls apart on consideration IMO. Even in simple, controlled circumstances like football, the meaning of "possession" is subject to mutual agreement (i.e. "rules").

You could take some particular definition of "possession" as "natural" or otherwise axiomatic. This is not unheard of, but I think it's a trick of misdirection to place it in the domain of the "physical/real" when it is plainly a political matter.


Interesting point,

I wonder if we will ever have a future where cryogenic freezing works and allows people to own land after they are temporarily dead.


> Sounds to me like in the UK you cant truly own land

Can you name a country that behaves differently?


Yeah, you don't truly own land, you pay property taxes, etc.

It's more like you lease the land :)


Possession is 9/10ths of the law, and the gov’t likes to claim possession of all real property in it’s borders in some way or another




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