And you still need to pay taxes (rent) to your municipality (landlord).
So if I summarize, you can't do what you want with it and you need to pay your landlord.
Why are people calling this 'owning' a house?
So if I summarize, you can't do what you want with it and you need to pay your landlord.
Why are people calling this 'owning' a house?
Historical reasons? Delusions? Sales tactics?
Even the city state kings of the first communities needed to provide defense and such, taxation is the obvious way to do that. Taxation of property is quite reasonable compared to head taxes.
Ok, yes, you are right...70 years, not 99; though there is some suspicion/optimism that the government will extend the leases indefinitely. The property tax in CQ/SH is only on second properties and easily avoided right now through transfers or sham divorces. It will be interesting to see if the gov is really serious about property taxes.
If I buy a computer, I own it.
Far from a 'situation that basically no-one is in' I would say. I suppose what you meant is that basically no one really own their house. Well if it's the case, why use the word anyway?
Words have meaning. You can't just decide to apply a word to a situation where it doesn't apply and call it a day.
Taxes too are orthogonal to ownership; where I live people treat the local government tax as another utility bill, like water or electricity (so when renting sometimes the landlord pays or sometimes the tenant does). If I owned a car I'd pay tax on it - but if I leased a car I'd also pay tax on it in the same way.
Words have meanings but are necessarily simplifications (just as a map cannot capture every detail of the territory). In legalese I lease my flat - but in English I own it, because how I use it and what I can and can't do with it has much more in common with something that I own than with something that I rent or lease.