Ground rent
As a legal term, ground rent specifically refers to regular payments made by a holder of a leasehold property to the freeholder or a superior leaseholder, as required under a lease. In this sense, a ground rent is created when a freehold piece of land is sold on a long lease or leases. The ground rent provides an income for the landowner. In economics, ground rent is a form of economic rent meaning all value accruing to titleholders as a result of the exclusive ownership of title privilege to location. History In Roman law, ground rent (solarium) was an annual rent payable by the lessee of a superficies (a piece of land), or perpetual lease of building land. In early Norman England, tenants could lease their title to land so that the land-owning lords did not have any power over the sub-tenant to collect taxes. In 1290 King Edward I passed the Statute of Quia Emptores that prevented tenants from leasing their lands to others through subinfeudation. This created a system of substitution, where the tenant's full interest would be transferred to the purchaser or donee, who would pay a rentcharge. This system later passed into common law in England and was adopted by many nations which trace their legal heritage to England. Classical economists and Georgists quantify ground rent to investigate and capture unearned income called economic rent, as distinct from income derived from labour. Valuation The value of the freehold interest comprises: A multiple of the current annual ground rent payable, which will depend on the outstanding term of the lease any future scheduled increases in the level of ground rent market interest rates the probability of default if the rents for individual flats etc. are small, the cost of collection The net present value of the reversion, i.e. at the end of the lease the freeholder (to whom the rent is paid) will probably be fully entitled to the property, so the shorter the lease the greater the reversion value. Any attributable "marriage value" (a substantial sum designed to compensate freeholders for their loss of interest when a lease with less than 80 years to run is extended). In economics, ground rent means all economic value accruing to owners of land, regardless of whether payments are explicitly made or the rents are imputed. Various assessment methodologies are employed by real estate appraisers. United Kingdom In the United Kingdom, the rights of residential tenants of property subject to a long lease at a ground rent are governed by the Leasehold Reform Act 1967 for houses and the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 for flats. England and Wales In English law, it appears that the term "ground rent" was at one time popularly used for the houses and lands out of which ground rents issue, as well as for the rents themselves. Lord Eldon observed in 1815 that the context in which the term occurred may materially vary its meaning. The contemporary accepted meaning of ground