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Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax

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Re: Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax

#41

Post by LatteLazy »

sonthonax wrote: post #22
LatteLazy wrote: post #10

When my brother bought his house (UK, built in the early 2000s), we had to buy insurance against the local church needing a new roof. The residents of the area were responsible for local church upkepe because of a medieval edict. It was only about £40 luckily...

That insurance is still a tax, but a really old fashioned one, where private tax farmers collect and administer the treasury rather than the state. That £40 must actually cover the costs of the local church's roof.

Agreed. I'm always impressed by the stickability of these things. No one has said "this is bs, fix your own roof, it's not 1400 anymore".

Re: Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax

#42

Post by sneak »

CogitoCogito wrote: post #40
sneak wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Leftover laws are weird things. Fun fact: just like this old tax that the Italian residents are unhappy with, every single person that was old enough to vote for their representatives who then voted to ratify the income tax amendment in the USA is now dead. There is no one alive in the USA that was in any way represented in the vote for income tax; conversely everyone that is alive in the US today and is subject to…

Today's voters are capable of electing representatives who could repeal that amendment. It's not like voters are left without recourse.

It appears that elected officials have an extremely strong bias to adding/amending versus repealing/scaling back. I'm not sure the current approach is long-term viable.

Re: Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax

#43

Post by yunohn »

sneak wrote: post #42
CogitoCogito wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today's voters are capable of electing representatives who could repeal that amendment. It's not like voters are left without recourse.

It appears that elected officials have an extremely strong bias to adding/amending versus repealing/scaling back. I'm not sure the current approach is long-term viable.

> elected officials have an extremely strong bias to adding/amending versus repealing/scaling back

I find this to be a crippling problem of how politics works in modern democracies.

Taxes are a great example, because almost every country will increase it, but never decrease it. They’ll think of a 100 new ways to extract taxes, but never remove outdated ones.

Re: Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax

#44

Post by ajdlinux »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #38
toyg wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even without going archaic, I had to take insurance when I bought a terrace, because a lease existed on the land at some point but the owning company had dissolved years prior and no lease had been paid for a long time. This is very common in a country (UK) where the State has had strong continuity for several centuries, so land rights and entitlements can be tracked very far back.

These things really are to extract money and commissions during the property purchase. In most cases there is no issue at all but no-one is going to question paying a few pounds extra on a property purchase "for peace of mind".

When the likelihood of the risk is small, but the potential damage bill could be financially catastrophic, I think it's perfectly rational to buy insurance if the premium is so low.

Re: Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax

#45

Post by mytailorisrich »

ajdlinux wrote: post #44
mytailorisrich wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These things really are to extract money and commissions during the property purchase. In most cases there is no issue at all but no-one is going to question paying a few pounds extra on a property purchase "for peace of mind".

When the likelihood of the risk is small, but the potential damage bill could be financially catastrophic, I think it's perfectly rational to buy insurance if the premium is so low.

Sure. My point is that often the risk is not small, it's non-existent.

When I bought my current house my solicitor suggested that the seller should pay for insurance cover for the fact that there was no planning paperwork for a small side extension. Of course I said OK and of course the seller also agreed. But that extension was even shown on the land registry plan and was obviously 20+ years old. Since planning breach action is limited to 4 years there was no chance of any problem. Free money for insurer, commissions, etc.

Re: Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax

#47

Post by toyg »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #38
toyg wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even without going archaic, I had to take insurance when I bought a terrace, because a lease existed on the land at some point but the owning company had dissolved years prior and no lease had been paid for a long time. This is very common in a country (UK) where the State has had strong continuity for several centuries, so land rights and entitlements can be tracked very far back.

These things really are to extract money and commissions during the property purchase. In most cases there is no issue at all but no-one is going to question paying a few pounds extra on a property purchase "for peace of mind".

It was literally a one-off £4 in 2006. I doubt it helped the solicitor in any way...

Re: Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax

#48

Post by aclelland »

pmlnr wrote: post #5

In the UK, during the purchase of our house we had to take a "chancel liability insurance", because our freehold once belonced to a rectory, so to protect ourselves from repair liability towards a chapel that has been here for centuries, we had to pay a one-off insurance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chancel_repair_liability Leftover laws are weird things. EDIT: PS: sadly, the legendary, obligatory archery practice…

Yeah there are a lot of very obscure legal rules that most people aren't aware of or haven't been enforced in many years.

Not from as far back but my house was built in the early 1980's and my house deeds include the stipulation that I must maintain a garage attached to the property (so I can't convert it to extra living space) because the local government retain the right to convert the space into a decontamination shelter in the event of chemical, biological or nuclear attack. Had a good chuckle with my lawyer regarding it, don't think I'll be too concerned about where to keep my lawn mower if the city has been nuked.

Re: Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax

#49

Post by barrkel »

sneak wrote: post #28
pmlnr wrote: post #5

In the UK, during the purchase of our house we had to take a "chancel liability insurance", because our freehold once belonced to a rectory, so to protect ourselves from repair liability towards a chapel that has been here for centuries, we had to pay a one-off insurance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chancel_repair_liability Leftover laws are weird things. EDIT: PS: sadly, the legendary, obligatory archery practice…

> Leftover laws are weird things. Fun fact: just like this old tax that the Italian residents are unhappy with, every single person that was old enough to vote for their representatives who then voted to ratify the income tax amendment in the USA is now dead. There is no one alive in the USA that was in any way represented in the vote for income tax; conversely everyone that is alive in the US today and is subject to…

Your "strong argument" is in direct opposition to the fundamental principle of common law: precedent.

Re: Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax

#50

Post by intrasight »

sneak wrote: post #42
CogitoCogito wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today's voters are capable of electing representatives who could repeal that amendment. It's not like voters are left without recourse.

It appears that elected officials have an extremely strong bias to adding/amending versus repealing/scaling back. I'm not sure the current approach is long-term viable.

Who else sees a software dev analogy here. Perhaps we need a law that says every 10 years we have a "sprint" to address the "technical dept" of anachronistic laws.
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