In most countries, leased property is often referred to as "owned", yet you have to keep paying over and over to renew that lease.
In that regard, ownership is more like "sizing the window in a large enough shape so that all stakeholders are convinced that it will never be required to put special attention on it again, despite ineluctable changes".
Maybe privileges, responsibilities and liability are less delusional terms for that matter.
Thought experiment: If they were to damage their vehicle (but assuming it's still legal to drive), who gets to decide whether it should - or indeed must - be repaired? Your parents, or someone else?
(Full disclosure: I recently added some scratches to my wife's car after a concrete pillar jumped out in front of me in an underground car park. I don't need to involve the insurance company, I don't need to talk to any bank or finance company, I can simply go to any local independent provider and have the car repaired. Or indeed not, if I decide it's not worth it.)
This is all true for a leased car as well. The only difference is that when you turn the leased car in at the end of the term, you may get charged by the leasing company for any damages that are currently on the car.
Almost, except that:
> The only difference is that when you turn the leased car in at the end of the term [...]
Yes, correct, and exactly what I was alluding to: the significant difference between owning and leasing!
EDIT: Maybe I'm missing something (we've only ever owned vehicles outright, never leased). Q: If you are leasing a car and you have a (let's say fairly serious) crash, are you allowed to have it repaired in the manner of your choice, even at a third-party repair shop, and not even be obliged to inform the leasing company about the accident and/or the repairs?
If you fail to pay your lease then they will reclaim that particular item.
At least in the states they absolutely do. It starts off as a tax lien which is then sold to whoever wants to buy it, so that the private sector handles actually reclaiming the land and re-listing it on the stock market.
https://www.bristol.gov.uk/council-tax/what-happens-if-you-d...
In the UK the process is different, which just shows that they don't have to take your house to reclaim outstanding taxes.
The point is that the government has options, if the property recovery value doesn't cover the missing taxes then I'm sure they will recover through other avenues. If you lease a car and don't pay, they can really only reclaim the car.
The government can take whatever they want in repayment as they are the government.
Also this depends on the state, some US states are set up where the bank owns the title until the borrower pays it off, and others have the borrower on the title from the start but with a lien on the car by the lender in case the borrower doesn't pay. https://realestatelicensewizard.com/title-theory-vs-lien-the...
A vehicle's registration papers show the keeper's name and details but the document states in large letters "This document is not proof of ownership".
[0] https://www.gov.uk/vehicle-registration/new-and-used-vehicle...
one gives you ownership at the start, the second one merely "rents" you the thing
Long-lease ownership is particularly common for apartments, where it is important that the owner of one apartment does not do anything to impair the structural integrity of other apartments or the building as a whole, and there may also be a common area that apartment owners are obliged to maintain. This means that you must impose certain covenants on the apartment owners and traditionally the only way to do that was through leasehold ownership.
Ownership is a very fuzzy concept and it is interesting to think about what are its hallmarks. There is no single correct answer, but I think a lot of lawyers tend to think of ownership as being a right "in rem" (ie, a right in respect of a thing, which is theoretically enforceable against any third party) rather than a right "in personam" (ie, a right against a particular person, which is generally not enforceable against third parties). In that regard, a leasehold is a right in rem whereas, for example, a licence to dwell on a property for a period of time would be a right in personam.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leasehold_estate [2] https://mullinstreacy.ie/freehold-vs-leasehold/ [3] https://www.ft.com/content/b8068d5f-b4b9-4be6-a67e-1866fee68...
Note that private property rights still exist on top of that but this is why the state can decide that e.g. an energy company's interest in your land is more beneficial to the people than yours. You'll still get reimbursed although legally speaking I'm not sure the state would have to do that in order to seize it. The difference is that they couldn't do this for land owned by the Catholic church for example.
As a caveat note that not all land used by the Catholic church in Germany is owned by the Catholic church, this really only applies to historical claims and contracts the state decided to uphold.
Maybe that's a technicality (at first glance it feels like an almost outlandish claim), but in the spirit of enquiry I'll put it like this: can you share a source for that?
FWIW I skimmed [0] and failed to come up with anything that comes close...
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enteignung#Wiedervereinigtes_D... (third paragraph):
Since 2009 there have been 1647 procedures initiated in the Bundesrepublik for expropriation of landownership for road construction projects. As of August 2020, 448 of these procedures have been completed. Paragraph 19 of the Federal Funeral Street Act allows expropriations, "insofar as they are necessary for the execution of a determined or approved construction project" and are in accordance with Article 14 of the Basic Law for the benefit of the general public.
About six years ago there was a publication summing up the current state of affairs[1]. I believe we can safely say your comment doesn't reflect it at all.
[0]: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/gg/art_14.html
[1]: https://www.bundestag.de/resource/blob/414774/826f537e22a405...
"But these buildings have an even lesser-known sibling in the world of condominiums, known as leasehold condos. In this scenario, condo owners get an actual deed and therefore own their property, even though the building is technically under lease to a larger ownership entity, to which it pays rent."
https://www.brickunderground.com/buy/what-is-a-leasehold-con...