Why Many British Homeowners Don’t Actually Own Their Homes at All

By D. K. Parker

If you are a wealthy Russian worrying about where to store your money, owning a flat in central London is not a bad option.As Boris Johnson1. Boris Johnson: 鲍里斯·约翰逊，现任伦敦市长。, London’s mayor, says, the city is “now globally recognised as such a desirable city that its property is treated effectively as another asset class2. asset class: 资产类别，资产种类。”. Yet how many of those oligarchs realise that in many cases, they are technically not owners but rather tenants?3. oligarch: 寡头，意指为数不多的销售者（在寡头垄断市场上，少数厂商供给该行业全部或大部分产品，所占份额较大，对市场价格和产量影响很大）；tenant: 承租人，房客。Under English land law, most flats are sold as “leaseholds”,which is technically a form of long-term tenancy.4. leasehold: 租赁；tenancy: 租期，租用。The buildings and land on which they stand are owned by the “freeholder”5. freeholder: 不动产保有者。. This divide confuses many home buyers—not just oligarchs—and it has odd repercussions6. repercussion: 反响，影响。for England’s cities. So what is the difference between being a leaseholder and a freeholder?

虽然如今的房价不断高涨，不过仍有很多人想尽办法买房，想要拥有自己名下的房产，摆脱蜗居现状。拥有房产的人们更是小心翼翼地保养自家房屋，生怕租客把自己的房子糟蹋了。然而在英国，很多所谓的房主实际上根本没有自己的房子，他们的房产大都转租出去，自己有时想收都收不回来。

The distinction between a freeholder and a tenant is a feudal one: from the 11th century, freemen owned land on which tenant farmers toiled.7. 出租人和承租人的区别体现在封建制度中：自11世纪起，享有市民权的人们拥有土地，佃户租用土地对其进行耕作。freemen: 享有市民权的人；toil: 耕作。In the 18th century, aristocratic families such as the Cadogans sold long leases on their land to developers, allowing the development of London’s “Great Estates”.8. aristocratic: 贵族的；estate: 房地产。Leases9. lease: 租约，租赁协定。solve a legal problem. When someone buys a house, it is obvious that they own the land beneath it and should be responsible for the building’s upkeep10. upkeep: 维修，保养。. But when several flats are piled on top of each other,it is less clear who is responsible for the building’s structure. Hence the freeholder takes charge for the duration of the lease.

This has the consequence that many people have no idea who really owns their expensive flat. But it also doesn’t much matter. As Graham Winkley of Boodle Hat field, a law firm, says, when a freeholder sells a long lease on land, “they’ve basically already taken their money.” As the result of decades of legislation, leaseholders have firm legal rights. Any tenant who has been in a property for more than two years can renew his lease for another 90 years(albeit sometimes at extremely high cost).11. albeit: 虽然，尽管；extremely: 极其地，非常地。This means that few ever run out12. run out: 到期。. In practice, owning the freehold of a building means owning the right to manage it—and charge a service charge. The developers of new flats tend to issue long leases—typically 99 years or 125 years—and farm out the freehold to management companies.13. 新公寓开发商倾向长期租赁——通常为99年到125年——并将不动产权部分转让给管理公司。farm out: 部分转让。Does the system work? Not really. The continual renewing of leases confuses property owners and generates money for law firms. Unless they own a share of the freehold, lease-owners cannot easily demand repairs or changes to a building.Freeholds are commonly traded by speculators14. speculator: 投机者。, some of whom try to make money out of abusing15. abuse: 滥用。service charges. In other common-law16. common-law: 习惯法, 独立于国家制定法之外，是依据某种社会权威确立的，具有一定强制性的行为规范总和。countries such as America and Canada, flats are sold as “condominiums”, where a corporation owns the building in trust on behalf of residents.17. condominium: 分套购置的公寓；in trust: 受托的。That is a simpler system, where owners’rights are clearer.

In London, perhaps the bigger problem is that leases never run out and freeholders are often difficult to find. Given the city’s housing crisis, it would make sense to demolish low-density homes in many areas and build new ones.18. make sense: 言之有理，讲得通；demolish: 拆除；density: 密度。In the 1920s and 1930s, many new flats were built on land where leases expired19. expire: 期满。all at once. These days, that sort of redevelopment is all but impossible. Even if a single freeholder owned a plot of land, there is no way to deny leaseholders the right to renew or to force them to sell up their share.20. 即使一个不动产保有者拥有一块土地，他也无法剥夺承租人续租的权利或是强迫他们卖掉手中的份额。As a result, old housing is rarely demolished unless it is owned by local authorities (who can push out leaseholders).The only land available for building is ex-industrial land. Londoners are forced to pay ever greater sums of money for the right to be a “tenant”, and never enough new housing is built.