Showing papers on "Leasehold estate published in 2001"

Land tenure and farm management efficiency: The case of smallholder rubber production in customary land areas of Sumatra

Abstract: This study assesses the impact of land tenure institutions on the efficiency of farm management based on a case study of rubber production in customary land areas of Sumatra, Indonesia Using the modes of land acquisition as measures of land tenure institutions, we estimated tree planting, revenue, income, and short-run profit functions, and internal rates of return to tree planting on smallholder rubber fields We find generally insignificant differences in the incidence of tree planting and management efficiency (defined as residual profits) of rubber production between newly emerging private ownership and customary ownership This is consistent with our hypothesis that tree planting confers stronger individual rights, if land rights are initially weak (as in the case of family land under customary land tenure systems) On the other hand, short-term profits are higher on land that is rented through share tenancy This result indicates that rubber trees are over-exploited under renting arrangements due partly to the short-run nature of the land tenancy contracts and partly to the difficulty landowners face in supervising tapping activities of tenants in spatially dispersed rubber fields

Turkmenistan: An Assessment of Leasehold-Based Farm Restructuring

Abstract: Turkmenistan's unique approach to land reform and farm restructuring has produced a significant shift to individual or household-based farming, with more than three-quarters of the arable land leased to individual households or small groups Most leaseholders consider this land to be rightfully theirs, and they expect to keep it in the future, either as private owners, or through extension of their leasehold However, individual production is administratively circumscribed by a pervasive system of state orders and central planning The lease contracts rigidly specify the crop that each leaseholder is required to produce (typically cotton or wheat) and set a specific quantity target for delivery to the state at prices much below the level of prices on international markets Managers and leaseholders universally express the view that the prices they receive from the state for wheat and cotton are too low, and identify the chance to sell freely at open market proces as a key factor that would improve the economic situation on farms Both managers and leaseholders expressed enthusiasm for the reform at the time of the survey This is a natural psychological reaction to the dramatic transition to a new system, and to avoid disillusionment, the initial change must be followed by further meaningful reforms, including abolition of state orders, transfer of land to individual control, and elimination of constraints on individual choice

Rich agriculture and poor farmers: land, landlords and farmers in Flanders in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Abstract: This article focuses on the property relations in Belgian and Flemish agriculture in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The main question is: what was the relationship between land use, land ownership and land rents? By analysing the position of the (small) farmers and of the (small) landlords we could confirm that the dominance of small-scale farming coincided with a specific pattern of property distribution and surplus extraction. The high and increasing returns of the land were almost entirely pruned away by private landowners. The extreme fragmentation of the land, the large proportion of leaseholds and the high rents grew to a maximum in the second half of the nineteenth century due to competition both on the property market and on the leasehold market. This put the Flemish farmer in the worst possible situation, with a sad contrast between brilliant harvests and the miserable existence of those who generated them.

Long‐Term Ground Leases, the Redevelopment Option and Contract Incentives

Abstract: Ground leased property trades at a discount relative to the fee interest. We explore contractual alternatives that would be Pareto preferred by owners of the leased fee estate and the leasehold interest. The sharing of the value of the residual claim between the owner of the leased fee and the leasehold and a lease extension clause triggered by redevelopment can enhance the value of the asset to both parties. The results suggest that employing such contractual terms in ground leases in the United States would lead to outcomes more consistent with the fee simple case. Escalation clauses also have a potential impact on the timing and intensity of redevelopment.

Rent Control And Tenancy Duration

Abstract: This paper investigates how rent control affects mobility on the Danish private rental housing market. Based on a unique and extensive data set a measure of the degree of rent regulation of each housing unit is calculated, and this is coupled with socio-economic characteristics and spells of tenancy duration for each household. To accommodate the special features of such a data set we apply a proportional hazard duration model, that encompasses both the presence of left truncated tenancy durations, right censored observations and allows for a very flexible specification of the time dependency as captured by the baseline hazard function. We find that tenancy mobility is severely reduced by the presence of rent control. Tenancy duration for a typical household in the private rental sector is found to be more than six years longer if the apartment belongs to the 10 per cent most regulated units than if it belongs to the 10 per cent least regulated units.

Turkmenistan: An Assessment of Leasehold-based Farm Restructuring

Abstract: Turkmenistan's unique approach to land reform and farm restructuring has produced a significant shift to individual or household-based farming, with more than three-quarters of the arable land leased to individual households or small groups. Most leaseholders consider this land to be rightfully theirs, and they expect to keep it in the future, either as private owners, or through extension of their leasehold. However, individual production is administratively circumscribed by a pervasive system of state orders and central planning. The lease contracts rigidly specify the crop that each leaseholder is required to produce (typically cotton or wheat) and set a specific quantity target for delivery to the state at prices much below the level of prices on international markets. Managers and leaseholders universally express the view that the prices they receive from the state for wheat and cotton are too low, and identify the chance to sell freely at open market proces as a key factor that would improve the economic situation on farms. Both managers and leaseholders expressed enthusiasm for the reform at the time of the survey. This is a natural psychological reaction to the dramatic transition to a new system, and to avoid disillusionment, the initial change must be followed by further meaningful reforms, including abolition of state orders, transfer of land to individual control, and elimination of constraints on individual choice.

Reforming leasehold: discursive events and outcomes 1984-2000

Abstract: This article uses discourse analysis to explore and explain the limits of ongoing efforts to resolve the problems experienced by long leaseholders living in private flats in England and Wales. Attention is focused on the position of leasehold within the three discourses of property law, housing, and housing law, as revealed through the language used in legislation, consultation papers, Law Commission reports, political statements, media representations, and the accounts of leaseholders themselves. The implementation gap between legislative intentions and effects, so often neglected in discussion of housing policy, is explored. The article considers policy and legislation in the light of a metanarrative encompassing all aspects of the multi-occupancy of blocks of flats.

The Anti-Rent Era in New York Law and Politics, 1839-1865@@@Land and Freedom: Rural Society, Popular Protest, and Party Politics in Antebellum New York

Abstract: BOOK REVIEWS The Anti-Rent Era in New York Law and Politics, 1839-1865. By Charles W. McCurdy. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001. Pp. xvii, 408. Tables, maps. $49.95.) Land and Freedom: Rural Society, Popular Protest, and Party Politics in Antebellum New York. By Reeve Huston. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Pp. ix, 291. Illustrations, appendix. $35.00.) Beginning in the late 1830s, farmers in the Hudson River Valley rose up against manorial landlords and the leasehold system. Created during the seventeenth century, the region's feudalistic order had survived the American Revolution and then prospered as land-hungry migrants streamed out of New England. By 1840, some 260,000 people-nearly 10 percent of New York's population-farmed on various sorts of long-term leases that subjected them to annual rents, substantial fees (usually a quarter) if they sold their leases or improvements, and the expectation of personal service. Patroon Stephen Van Rensselaer III refused to shake hands with his tenants; instead, like a medieval lord, he extended his forefinger to be grasped. Violent tenant revolts had periodically threatened the leasehold system only to be repressed by the militia. Then, as Charles W. McCurdy argues in his deeply-researched and wonderfully detailed legal and political analysis, the struggle entered a new phase in 1839, when Van Rensselaer's death sparked an anti-rent strike. Even as Governor William H. Seward called out the militia to deter tenant violence, he condemned the manorial system as "oppressive, antirepublican and degrading," and vowed to promote land reform. By defining manorial tenures "as a public problem that required a public solution" (4), Seward set in motion a political and legal contest that continued for twenty-five years. For reasons that are not at all clear, recent social historians have neglected the anti-rent conflict. The last full-length treatments appeared in the mid-1940s: journalist Henry Christman's Tin Horns and Calico: A Decisive Episode in the Emergence of Democracy (1945), which focused on personalities and dramatic events, and historian David Maldwyn Ellis's Landlords and Farmers in the Hudson-Mohawk Region, 1790-1850 (1946), a more substantial analysis that devoted only a few chapters to the uprising. Now we have two superb, complementary accounts of the anti-rent agitation. Reeve Huston's Land and Freedom, based on his doctoral dissertation, sets the New York uprising within a broad social, political, and ideological context. As Huston explains, the prohibition of entail and the decline of primogeniture during the revolutionary era undermined gentry power by diffusing land ownership. Simultaneously, the spread of freehold land tenure, market relations, and capitalist values rendered the leasehold system increasingly anachronistic. Consequently, when Van Rensselaer's heirs tried to collect more than $400,000 in back rents, the tenants refused to pay, arguing the rents had been forgiven. Moreover, the farmers demanded the conversion of their leases into freeholds, offering to take out mortgages that, at 7 percent interest, would equal their annual rents. While the Van Rensselaer heirs and other landlords were prepared to sell, they demanded payment of back rent, compensation for ancillary rights, and higher land valuations. An epic battle commenced. As Huston demonstrates through a detailed political analysis of the anti-- rent movement on the local level, the tenantry was now well-organized. The rise of political parties had undermined the old system of deferential politics. By the 1830s, over 80 percent of the electorate voted, and they now elected party politicians rather than the relatives and allies of the Van Rensselaers. Moreover, no fewer than one-third of the anti-rent activists had been active in party politics previously and knew the tactics of political mobilization. "Here," Huston concludes, "was a crucial, if unintended, consequence of the Jacksonian Revolution" (89). …

Method and system for rapid tenant screening, lease recommendation, and automatic conversion/transcription of data into lease documents

Abstract: System, method, computer program and computer program product, and business model for rapid tenant screening, recommendation, and conversion of data to lease documents. Provides structure and method for entering data from application to rent real estate for rapidly acquiring credit and screening from servers for the prospective tenant, passing information through a computer program that evaluates financial criteria, and presenting decision whether or not to accept tenant. Manager enters information about property and terms of lease, and automatically converts tenant credit information into leasing for signatures that will serve as legal basis for tenancy. Lease and credit information are all stored on central computer, remotely accessible for both on-site and off-site management to view, and controlled by access security protocol. Tenant rent and lease information is automatically entered into tenant files, viewable remotely, so that there is a real-time view of tenant status for those with permission to access information.

Land Reform and the Political Organization of Agriculture

Abstract: The modern theory of agrarian organization has studied how the economic environment determines organizational form under the assumption of stable property rights to land. The political economy literature has modeled the endogenous determination of property rights. In this Paper we propose a model in which the economic organization of agriculture and the political equilibrium determining the distribution of property rights are jointly determined. In particular, because the form of organization may affect the probability and distribution of benefits from agrarian reform, it may be determined in anticipation of this impact. The model offers a reason for why tenancy, despite its economic advantages, has been so little used in countries where agrarian reform is a salient political issue. We argue that this in particular helps to understand the dearth of tenancy and the relative failure of land reform in Latin America.

Accounting for leasehold property in the UK: A triumph of substance over form?

Abstract: This paper is concerned with accounting for leasehold property. While property professionals are familiar with commercial and technical aspects of leases, recent proposals offer serious implications beyond the notional historical reporting of an entity’s financial position. Current proposals issued by the ASB will markedly impact upon the financial position reported by businesses holding leasehold properties, with consequent effects upon their reported profitability and their ability to raise finance. This paper examines the current position, whereby leases are regarded as either a finance or an operating lease. It then examines the conceptual framework in which accountants view the existing lease reporting provisions, examining the unease the current provisions cause. Finally, it discusses the most recent proposals and offers a commentary upon responses to them. It concludes with a warning to the owners and users of leasehold property to be ready for change ‐ or to make their voices known.

Modern Land Law

Abstract: Summary:- Modern Land Law offers fresh and contemporary coverage of a traditionally difficult subject. Mark Thompson moves away from the typically dense, black-letter approach adopted by many textbooks to take a more engaging look at the social context within which land law operates. The book is structured to reflect the key topics that are typically covered on the LLB making it ideal for use as a main textbook and the contextual approach and selective coverage ensure that it offers in-depth and rigorous analysis and discussion. The author excels in explaining difficult rules and concepts clearly but without oversimplification and guides students around the common pitfalls in areas where there is typically misunderstanding or confusion. Table of Contents:- 1. The scope of the subject; 2. Tenure and estates; 3. Law and equity; 4. The 1925 Legislation; 5. Registration of title; 6. The transfer of freehold land; 7. Possessory titles; 8. Consecutive and concurrent interests in land; 9. Co-ownership 1: acquisition of interests in the home; 10. Co-ownership 2: the legal framework of co-ownership; 11. Leasehold estates; 12. Mortgages; 13. Easements; 14. Covenants between freeholders; 15. Licences and estoppel

On the structure of tenancy contracts: theory and evidence from 19th century rural Sicily

Abstract: In a world with asymmetric information, contractual terms are an important incentive device. This Paper studies the effect of crop characteristics on the choice between short-term and long-term tenancy contracts and on the choice between sharecropping and fixed-rent contracts when the production process depends on two non-contractibles: effort devoted to current production and effort devoted to plant and soil maintenance. Long-term contracts are effective in providing incentives for non-contractible maintenance investment. Since, however, incentive provision is costly, long-term contracts will be employed only when, due to the characteristics of the crop, maintenance benefits are high, or when, due to the characteristics of the tenant, the cost of providing incentives is low. The predictions of the theory are tested on a unique data set containing 705 tenancy contracts signed between 1870 and 1880 in the province of Syracuse (Sicily). The empirical evidence shows that, indeed, long-term contracts were used if the crops grown had higher maintenance needs. Other comparative static results are derived and tested empirically.

The optimal length of an industrial tenancy

Abstract: Industrial or commercial tenancies incur costs to the tenant which are both directly and inversely related to the length of the tenancy. From optimization theory, the result of this is that there is a unique optimum tenancy length for each tenant at each location, and tenants will be willing to pay rental premiums in order to ensure tenancies are close to their particular optimum lengths. The existence of an institutional standard lease length therefore imposes welfare costs on society, and the level of these welfare costs depends on the extent to which the institutional lease length differs from the market optimum.

A Correction and Prima Facie Test of the Canonical Theory of Share Tenancy

Abstract: We show that Stiglitz’s (1974) classic principal-agency theory of share tenancy does not imply, as commonly supposed, that the incidence of share tenancy increases with the tenant’s degree of risk aversion nor that share contracts are superior to fixed-lease contracts for risk averse farmers. When the model is parameterized based on previous studies of Philippine agriculture, it predicts that fixed-lease contracts will be chosen when the farmers have slight or severe risk aversion and share contracts will be chosen for moderately risk averse farmers, albeit with tenant shares of 80% or higher. In contrast, the highest observed sharing rates in the study area were in the neighborhood of 2/3, with most farmers contracted on 50:50 sharing arrangements. We conclude that the riskaversion vs. moral hazard theory is incomplete. Rent contracts must have additional disadvantages and/or share tenancy additional benefits that are not accounted for by static principal-agency theory.

Tenant characteristics and the choice of tenurial contracts in rural India

Abstract: Existing theoretical models of land tenancy predict that more experienced workers will be offered tenancy contracts while the less experienced ones will be offered wage contracts. Using data from three Indian villages we map from the set of agent and plot-level characteristics to the set of contracts offered on each plot. We find that tenants are older than wage labourers. In the set of tenants, older workers tend to be cash renters. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Efficiency Pricing, Tenancy Rent Control and Monopolistic Landlords

Abstract: We consider a model of 'tenancy rent control' where landlords are not allowed to raise the rent on sitting tenants nor to evict them, though they are free to set the nominal rent when taking on a new tenant. If there is any inflation in the economy, landlords prefer to take short-staying tenants. Assuming that there is no way for landlords to tell a tenant's type, an adverse selection problem arises. If in this context, landlords have monopoly power-which, as we argue, is indeed pervasive-then the housing market equilibria can exhibit some unexpected properties. Most strikingly, landlords may prefer not to raise the rent even when there is excess demand for housing. Such rents are labeled "efficiency rents" in this paper and their existence shows that tenancy rent control can give rise to equilibria that look as if there were traditional rent control in which the rent of each unit has a flat ceiling. In other words, tenancy rent control may not achieve the flexibility, which it was expected to impart, to the system of traditional rent control.

Method of converting real estate to security and system for analyzing real estate converted to security

Abstract: PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To solve the problem with conversion of real estate into a security: that, while real estate conventionally invested, such as buildings, can be evaluated because of ample data, real estate of the types unprecedented in markets, such as land for which a leasehold for business purposes is set, is difficult to evaluate. SOLUTION: A system for analyzing the value of real estate converted to the security has an input means 11, a calculation means 12, and an output means 13. In the calculation means 12, the amount of risks of real estate concerned and an expected interest assume a given predetermined proportionality relationship to each other and the amount of risks can be calculated using a scenario approach. Based on the relationship between the amount of risks and the expected rate of return and on the calculated amount of risks, the expected interest and the current price of the real estate concerned are calculated. The real estate to be converted to the security is a limited proprietary right of land 1 for which a leasehold for business purposes is set. COPYRIGHT: (C)2003,JPO

Lease-matching system

Abstract: PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a lease-matching system that can provide an efficient means for searching for leasehold properties, by enabling a person searching for a leasehold property to select the terms desired for target property on the Internet home page, so that a real estate agent can negotiate with the landlord under designated conditions. SOLUTION: An efficient means for searching for leasehold property is provided by efficiently putting information combined with a database and e-mail into circulation between a network for a plurality of real estate agents and a person searching for leasehold property. Before actually making an application for leasehold property searching, a target location and floor plan can be selected on the home page, and typical rental prices on the basis of information stored in the database can be comprehended, so that the situation where unrealistic conditions being submitted and a property satisfying the desired terms being not found will hardly occur. Accordingly, both the person searching for leasehold property and the real estate agent searching for leasehold property will reduce time wasted, enabling efficient search to be conducted for leasehold property.

Tenancy and Soil Conservation in Market Equilibrium

Abstract: A theoretical analysis of equilibrium contracts between risk neutral landlords and tenants when tenants' soil exploitation is non-contractible indicates that landlords will overinvest in conservation structures. An empirical model using farm-level data provides evidence that investment in contractible soil conservation measures is greater on rental land.

Recent government housing policy and the private rented residential sector: a review

Abstract: This paper concentrates primarily on UK central government policy, which relates mainly to England and Wales. Brief summaries of activities in the devolved nations are also included. The government undertook a review of housing policy during 2000, as well as implementing other important policy initiatives, such as the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill and the pilot Tenancy Deposit Schemes. The review was regarded as a profound disappointment by the private rented residential sector, and leaves the impression of a government that does not understand the sector, and does not have the time or the resources to acquire that understanding or think deeply about it. Consequently, it falls back on gut instincts, political preconceptions and token gestures. There are many important questions for the sector with which the government seems not to have engaged. Copyright © 2001 Henry Stewart Publications

Tenancy and Soil Conservation in Market Equilibrium

Abstract: A theoretical analysis of equilibrium contracts between risk neutral landlords and tenants when tenants' soil exploitation is non-contractible indicates that landlords will overinvest in conservation structures. An empirical model using farm-level data provides evidence that investment in contractible soil conservation measures is greater on rental land.

Squatting landscapes in southeastern Australia (1820-1895)

Abstract: Â This thesis applies the cultural landscape concept to the history of squatting (sheep and cattle farming on Crown Land outside the limits of location) in South Eastern Australia to revisit the question of squatting and the land question in Australia Using the techniques of historical archaeology as applied to cultural landscapes the thesis aims to examine the engagement between squatters and the landscape. Â After reviewing the history of the cultural landscape concept, the thesis proceeds along two lines of inquiry. Firstly, it discusses the history of squatting at the broad level seeking to understand the overall processes that created squatting landscapes. Secondly, it develops landscape studies on two squatting runs Lanyon and Cuppacumbalong (located near Australia's capital city Canberra that was not constructed until 1911). Lanyon is studied as an example of pioneering and establishing squatting runs. Cuppacumbalong is studies as an example of maintaining the squatting run over a period of time against broad processes such as economic fluctuations and the mid to late 1800s selection movement. Â The overview of the history of squatting argues that while the main driving force of squatting was the economics of the wool industry which, in collision with the Colonial Government's land policy produced the phenomena of wholesale illegal occupation of Crown Land across much of South-Eastem Australia. The settlement pattern created was driven by the occupation of grassy plains suitable for sheep farming. However, despite their insecure hold on the land the squatters strove to create buildings structures and landscapes that were expressions of their respectability. This respectability aided them in their struggle for security and conversion of squatting runs into secure leasehold. This security was challenged by the selection movement that aimed to create small f m s for respectable and hard working "yeoman" farmers. The methods chosen by Government to promote selection varied over time and from State to State but shared a general idealistic view of the economies of small farming and ignorance of the environment. Â Selection pitted the squatter and selector in a conflict to attain the same ideals of respectability and domesticity often on the same piece of land. This explains the often-ambiguous attitude of the squatter at times bitterly opposing selection but also often seeking accommodation with selectors. The nature of the conflict between squatter and selector was mediated through Crown Land statutes and regulations and this gives rise to the form of the cultural landscape in many areas. Â Research into Lanyon resulted in a substantial review of the established view of Lanyon as a landscape of "captive labour" to one where evidence of coercion in the landscape does not exist. The owner of Lanyon at the time Jarnes Wright is shown to have initially attempted to coerce his convicts but later seems to have come to another (unknown) arrangement to ensure their productive work. Wright was caught in the 1840s depression and became insolvent but was able to husband his estate sufficiently to establish himself on his squatting run at Cuppacumbalong (part of the Lanyon estate). Â Cuppacumbalong was sold by Wright to the de Salis family in 1855. Detailed analysis of the squatter/selector conflict is undertaken using the Conditional purchase records, the diary of George de Salis and the landscape itself. This shows how the patriarch of the family, the Hon Leopold Fane de Salis (MLC), husbanded his estate to create a freehold estate out of the squatting run. This was done by a mixture of using family and dummies to select important areas of the estate (the flats) that gave the family control of the most economically valuable parts of the land. From this base, de Salis was able to "quarantine" hostile selectors and accommodate "friendly selectors". Â As Leopold de Salis operated through the provisions of the various Crown Land Acts (which he as an MP was able to shape), he along with the selectors was forced to "improve" the land. This involved erections of residences (huts), fencing and clearing. From the conditional purchase records, it is clear that the bulk of the improvements went into ring barking and clearing the land. Thus the creation of squatting landscape in this case was a complex interaction of the desires of the de Salis's to maintain their estate, the desires of selectors to create small farms, the Lands Acts and their regulations and the environment. Â Overall the thesis concludes that in understand squatting and squatting landscapes both the broad process that shaped the development of squatting and the individual responses to the process need to be understood in order to break free from historical clichA©s and to paint a rich picture of Australian history.