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A Step-By-Step Guide To Property Development

The 19th Century

The crown, aristocracy and church as well as educational and social institutions were the main traditional landowners. How they managed that property was strictly governed by the law of the land, tradition and prestige, creating a culture of “land management” as opposed to that of developer. The owners saw their role as custodians of these estates rather than the estates being a way of generating trading profits.

That is not to say that they did not try to generate income from their tenants, but what was generally not accepted practice was to buy and sell the freehold of the land.

The way the landlords got over this issue was to grant a development lease, which was generally either ninety-nine years or often just twenty-one years full repairing leases for commercial properties.

With these arrangements the landowners kept within the rules that governed them as they maintained ownership of the freeholds, but they could sell development rights on the land for fixed periods of time. All of the big London estate owners such as Grosvenor or Portman were run in this way. This trend spread out of the city estates into the rural countryside as the cities expanded.

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