Why would they publish names? It's really no value to home buyers to see the name associated with a listing. In some cases, there are antidiscrimination laws that limit what information should be disclosed to sellers and buyers. Name might be one of those.
All this is available (including names of owners) from your typical government assessors web portal. Or via consolidators where the ownership, zoning, acreage, tax assessments and other data is available via an api call.
Not worth the trouble for them. They'll just end up getting thousands of takedown requests per day for information that has no value to their users.
Why wouldn't ownership be public? See the recent uproar[0] over the semi-anonymous purchase of land near Travis AFB. This is a clear case where market inefficiency is bad; individual sellers need to know when markets are changing and a single entity is willing to pay above assumed market rates for a large contiguous region. Anyone in favor of strong markets should favor full transparency of real estate ownership and…
Why should real estate have MORE stringent requirements on ownership disclosure than stock ownership?
Funny how often we allow shitty practices in one area because we already allow shittier practices in another. Why not have good policies instead of accepting bullshit all the time?
Lawyer here. Land ownership has to be public because the only way to establish your right to property is the publicly recorded and government maintained "chain of title": who you are, who you got it from, who they got it from, etc., going back to the original survey of your state (or at least 50 years, where I am). Otherwise it would be chaos with everyone waiving around 100-year-old bogus deeds claiming the right to…
I disagree, why can’t land ownership be in sealed documents much like court documents can be sealed? It’s still registered as before but the documents are available to just anyone anytime without reason and they stay out of the clutches of the sleazy data dealers and such that get my address this way and send me junk and harass me in other ways.
Obfuscation past this would still be possible as you said but the default should be privacy to the owner.
1. is possible without knowing the owner’s identity – “public” (and maybe whether that means federal or state) and “private” seems to be enough. 2. breaks down when you consider rentals. A tenant might be legally allowed to deny access to a landlord in some circumstances. Tenants are usually not registered in property registers. For 3., how does the information for taxation have to be public? The government also need…
For #1, just knowing it is private isn't enough. I may have a claim to the land, and need to know who owns it. For example it's really handy to know who owns the land that borders mine. For #2, the owner is ultimately responsible. If there is a lease or any other contract, that is a civil matter. But all that matters to the police is who owns it. For #3, your income and taxes you pay should probably be public too. Wh…
The public employee thing is irrelevant in this discussion. We get to see their salaries because we pay them. Whether or not salary should be public is a tough topic, imo. I can see it creating security concerns for some people who have enough to be targets of those who have very little while not having enough to pay for protection (i.e. most of the people who frequent this site, given IT workers are some of the best paid in the country).
Because people have been living in houses for millennia and such an idea of privacy would only have emerged in the last few decades.
In fact, only two or three decades ago it was standard for the telephone service to print everyone's name, address, and phone number in a big book, distribute it to every house and charge you $5 a month extra if you wanted to opt out of the list.
I can't remember street addresses being included in the 90s. So maybe 4 or 5 decades ago for that?
Is a phonebook with just numbers that different than a facebook search, which afaik you can't opt out of? It feels like it is, but I think only because having a phone became a basic necessity. Structurally the phone network seems very similar to signing up for a social network and the phone book very similar to being able to search for other people.
Lawyer here. Land ownership has to be public because the only way to establish your right to property is the publicly recorded and government maintained "chain of title": who you are, who you got it from, who they got it from, etc., going back to the original survey of your state (or at least 50 years, where I am). Otherwise it would be chaos with everyone waiving around 100-year-old bogus deeds claiming the right to…
I disagree, why can’t land ownership be in sealed documents much like court documents can be sealed? It’s still registered as before but the documents are available to just anyone anytime without reason and they stay out of the clutches of the sleazy data dealers and such that get my address this way and send me junk and harass me in other ways. Obfuscation past this would still be possible as you said but the defaul…
Yes, that's definitely what we need this day and age, more secrecy.
Why should real estate have MORE stringent requirements on ownership disclosure than stock ownership?
Funny how often we allow shitty practices in one area because we already allow shittier practices in another. Why not have good policies instead of accepting bullshit all the time?
Is your argument that everyone's assets should be public information? How do you square this with people interested in blackmail, or abusive families?
> Zillow ... publish all other information about the property and its history?
Among the info published are photos taken when the property was last on the market for sale. It's possible for the new owner to register as such, ask for and be notified by Zillow that the photos have been taken down.
Owner may then discover some months later that the photos are back online again.
Lawyer here. Land ownership has to be public because the only way to establish your right to property is the publicly recorded and government maintained "chain of title": who you are, who you got it from, who they got it from, etc., going back to the original survey of your state (or at least 50 years, where I am). Otherwise it would be chaos with everyone waiving around 100-year-old bogus deeds claiming the right to…
I disagree, why can’t land ownership be in sealed documents much like court documents can be sealed? It’s still registered as before but the documents are available to just anyone anytime without reason and they stay out of the clutches of the sleazy data dealers and such that get my address this way and send me junk and harass me in other ways. Obfuscation past this would still be possible as you said but the defaul…
Because ultimately, the reason could be made up. ANYONE could say they want to purchase the property and make an enquiry anyway. People can always lie or come up with fantastical stories.
The problem is the baby is being thrown out with the bath water. The solution is good, the modern pillaging of the data is not.
I just use a corporation, which is simple to set up. Some journalist could track it down, but random spammers and such have no idea. You don't have to set up the company in your home state either. You can use one of the states with more privacy (e.g WY).
> You can use one of the states with more privacy (e.g WY).
Less effective than you might think because you will be required to register as a foreign corporation in the state where the property is
located. That registration will expose exactly the same information as just setting up the company in that state.