The Ghost of Medieval Law

Saturday January 30, 2021

The Middle Ages was a quiet
time for my Italian ancestors, aside from famine, pestilence and war. The Roman
Empire was a distant memory and it would be ages before Hollywood offered us
parts as Mafia gangsters. So, Italians turned to creating great art. Here in
England our ancestors turned to creating strange laws.

Some of these laws made sense.
Requiring all men to practice with a longbow meant England had a standing army
equipped with state-of-the-art weaponry. Some laws were rather more left-field.
One still on the statutes requires any whale or sturgeon caught to be delivered
to the monarch. Personally, I would have gone for chickens but I am sure they
had good reason to choose inedible sea monsters.

While most of the sillier
medieval laws have been repealed, the effect of some may be felt down the ages.
No more so than in the property sector. An example could be the collection of
rents on holy days such as Michaelmas and Christmas day. The idea originated
because medieval landlords knew their serfs would be off work on holy days so
were able to pop by with their bag of groats to pay the rent.

The practice of ‘Quarter Day’ rents is alive and well today. Not because it is a sensible way to conduct business. Simply because it has always been done that way. And there is danger in blindly following practices because our ancestors thought they were a good idea.

And so, we come to the recent
announcement that Government finally intends to end the leasehold scandal.
Changes to the law create the right to extend a lease to 990 years, saving tens
of thousands of pounds in unfair fees. Many in the industry have waited decades
for this welcome news. Now we wait to see how it will pan out in practice.

The Leasehold Reform Act of
2002 introduced Commonhold, a system where the freehold is divided equally
between the owners in a block of flats. Eleven years later in 2013, I
approached our solicitor to setup a commonhold arrangement for a small block of
flats we’d developed. I was told virtually no mortgage provider would agree to
lend to a flat that was Commonhold.

Informal research on my part
indicated the mortgage providers had not addressed the commonhold issue because
they had no precedent and were reluctant to be first to establish one.
“Freehold is what we have always done so we shall stick to that”. Ever the
optimist I look forward to helping leaseholders escape the invidious freehold
trap. But I will be keeping an eye on “It’s the way we have always done it”
brigade.

I leave the last word to the
formidable Grace Hopper, Rear Admiral in the US navy who said “The most
dangerous phrase in the English language is ‘We’ve always done it this way’”.