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Dear Fred,
 
I have never heard about this. English property law does not permit
any outright ownership of land as I understand it. All land belongs
to the Crown, but may have been granted to others on either
FREEHOLD or LEASEHOLD. Most property in England is actually held
as FREEHOLD (for most purposes outright control of the land, but
subject to some restriction, and general law such as Town & Country
Planning controls (the right to develop land was nationalised
in 1947)). Quite a lot of property, though, is held on leasehold
either from the Crown Estate (e.g. the whole of Regent Street in
London), or from a large landowner (e.g. the Bloomsbury Estate
of the Duke of Bef
dford (Bedford - should be) in London).
Leasehold is typically for 99 or 999 years after which the
property reverts to the Leassor. You could, for example, buy
a flat in central London for 200,000 pounds with 45 years
left on the lease. At the end of 45 years your investment
would cease to have any value to you.
 
William 1 would have granted the estates to his barons
probably to be held at his pleasure. Generally speaking
any monarch could strip a baron of his estates at any
time if he misbehaved, and quite often did so. I suspect
the most recent time this was widely used was after
the 1745 attempted revolution by Prince Charles Edward
Stuart when many of his supporters lost their property,
titles and even their heads in some cases.
 
regards
 
Tim Rideout
Bartholomew Mapping Services
 
NB - Scotland is totally different! The Crown is the feudal
superior, and all the rest of us are vassals. My flat, for
example, has the University of St Andrews as the immediate
superior. We have to pay them a feu duty of 2 pounds each
half year and adhere to the conditions of the feu charter
(no letting, no multi-occupation, must be insured at all
times, etc). Any violation of the charter could allow them
to take the property back (without payment) even though
the flat cost us 100000 pounds to buy! In practice FEUHOLD
as it is called is similar to English FREEHOLD and the
closest you will ever get in Scotland to outright
ownership of land.