Treating Houses Like Copyright... And Then Securitizing And Selling Off The Revenue From Future Resales
from the ah,-financial-innovation dept
Earlier this year, we wrote about the attempt by some housing developers to demand a cut of every future sale of the homes they built. This was similar to various attempts around the globe to add a resale right for artists, such that they get a cut every time their artwork is resold. It makes no sense for artists (and actually does serious harm to artists), and it makes even less sense for houses. But how did the folks who came up with this plan defend it? By citing copyright law, of course, saying that it was no different than an author or a musician getting royalties from the sales of their works.Reader Mark points us to another article about this attempt to contractually create a resale right for homes. This article has a lot more details about the plans, put together by an financial firm called Freehold Capital Partners (which the last article called a Texas company, but is now referred to as a New York company -- which is interesting, given that the last article also noted that Texas law probably prohibited this practice). However, this article notes that the whole plan is prefaced not on actually giving the builders a cut of all future sales, but (of course) to securitize and sell off the potential future revenues to investors. Forget securitizing mortgages, now we're talking about securitizing a bizarre contractual resale right that means you have to pay some random investors any time you sell certain houses. Yikes.
Thankfully, plenty of folks are realizing how sketchy this is, and various states have specifically outlawed the practice. The article quotes some developers whining about how much nicer it is to be able to get a big chunk of money from these kinds of deals, but given that the chunk of money comes from a rather questionable process, they shouldn't have relied on it too much in the first place.
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Filed Under: copyright, houses, resale rights, securitization
Companies: freehold capital partners
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Good!
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Good!
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Re: Good!
Further, as the "owner" of the house the rights holders will be able to tell me what colour I can paint the house, what I can plant in the garden, what rugs I can use, what I can burn in the fireplace or wood stove (probably the latter given the ever increasing price of heating fuel be it natural gas, fuel oil or electricity) what colour I can paint the rooms, whether I can have a cat or dog or children in order to protect the "rights holders" rights and on and on.
Sheesh, doesn't this sound like renting rather than owning?
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Still, doesn't hold up. You actually have to maintain an apt. complex (at least currently. We'll see where this leads to.)
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Imagine the day...
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Re: Imagine the day...
Put a sticker on the outside of the box that states "By opening this container you agree to the hardware license." Of course it's located inside the box.
Have it say that the license is non-transferable and when the house is sold declare that the license terms have been broken.
Demo the house to collect your nails.
Good times!
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As things typically stand right now in most parts of our country, mineral rights are excluded from title transfer to purchasers of homes. Not once in all the years this practice has been ongoing have I ever heard or read anything even remotely attempting to associate it with copyright.
Why not be straight up and expose this for what it really is, an idea by financial-types trying to figure out how to squeeze more money out of home buyers? In fact, it seems to me that if these financial-types are trying to emulate something, perhaps a more appropriate example would be government assessment of annual property taxes.
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I didn't make the initial connection. The people putting this plan together did.
Odd that you ignore that and suggest that it is somehow our doing.
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Resale rights have an established beach head in Europe, as well as a very limited one in California under it's statutes.
Under US Copyright Law there is no such right. If a right to partake of a subsequent sale is created, it would be under general contract law and not federal copyright law.
Thus, the linkage suggested here is off the mark.
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"Just like authors who write books and musicians who write songs that will be enjoyed for generations to come, those who improve property are also engaged in the creative process, and the economics of the transaction should reflect that reality," a Freehold brochure says."
Do they not teach lawyers how to read these days?
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IP laws specially copyright will and are instigating bad behavior, is not a surprise people are pushing for ridiculous claims beyond the reasonable when you have an entire class of people who made it ok and don't want to give up any terrain and are doing ok raising the bar more and more each year.
You see those same laws in the middle age ended in blood, people just loose sight of what is proper and start demanding too much from others and that is when they get a smack down and are bitch slapped by the public.
IP maximalists will loose everything, it is not a question of if, but when, they are encroaching on others interests and this will absolutely trigger some kind of response.
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I am glad someone else sees this. See the next of mikes posts Man Trademarks 'Welcome To Parry Sound,' Demands Money From Parry Sound Organizations.
I think we should all do this as a contest, the prizes will be for ...
1) who can piss off the most people
2) who can get the most non-contest members to do the same
3) who can raise public awareness the most about IP law
4) who can get into the news and stay there the longest
It would be alot of fun and could cause the whole IP issue to be more in the public eye. We could even get the yes men to help us.
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The concept of Sale is Being Eliminated
I guess an important "contribution" of copyright is that sellers claim post-sale control over the content they sell. The real-estate industry, based on this post, is simply copy cating the concept that an "original" owner can somehow retain post sale controls. I wonder if that is the "real" copyright infringement!
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The contract prevents the owner from selling it to someone else who does not also agree to the same terms.
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Accelerando
For some reason this reminds me of Accelerando by Charles Stross.
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So?
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Re: So?
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its fine by me....
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Transfer fees - treating houses like copyrights
The economy is almost as bad as that of the Great Depression.
Double digit unemployment is everywhere.
New home sales are the lowest since 1963 - 47 years.
Most builders/developers are out of business.
Most homes are worth half of what they were valued at three years ago.
Transfer fees make it possible for an investor - like a bank, Wall Street or the U.S. government to invest in building programs and get repaid their loans over the course of 99 years.
Is it worth paying 1%, five or ten years from now, when you sell your home? Paying the investor 1%, to get us out of the mess we are in now? If 1% is a critical number, why not pay your real estate agent 5% instead of 6%. The agent is not saving the economy, but these investors could.
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Real estate in the US
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i think the act quite genuine, misplaced maybe, but they sure mean it.
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Ownership Rights
Land ownership in most states of the US ( I understand Hawaii is different) is denoted by a deed not a title.
A deed is a document created by an attorney and as there are numerous attorneys there may be numerous deeds to any piece of property. Most states have property taxes requiring registration of the deed with the county for tax assessment and laws that you have to pay property tax to own property. Things get real interesting when more than one person claims ownership of a piece of property and all pay taxes on that property.
Point is a deed is not an government acknowledgment of ownership like the title of a car is.
What all the above is is another game being plaid with property ownership originating in the fact that there is no ownership rights in software when it is licensed (sold in a shrink wrap package).
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