Leasing houses during history?

Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0

14 events

when toggle format	what		by	license	comment
Dec 3, 2011 at 15:37	comment	added	Lennart Regebro		@roman: That makes no sense. Why would he make a one-year lease for one shekel and then take possession of it? He could just buy it for one shekel in that case. And in any case, the fith of Tammuz is not only the date of possession, but also the date of the signing, so that's not ownership, it's the day he moves in.
Dec 3, 2011 at 15:07	comment	added	DVK		@roman - correct. I meant renting as a common phenomenon.
Dec 3, 2011 at 14:53	comment	added	roman		@DVK - I believe that renting was prior to Rome. Even in the exert above there is "rent". The mere addition of "taking possession" of a property is an addition to renting (to make it "leasing"). I would conclude that renting was as early as ancient babylon.
Dec 3, 2011 at 14:50	comment	added	roman		@LennartRegebro - I think that the meaning of lease here is not as rent because of "On the fifth of Tammuz he takes possession". I understand that on that date he receives the property after leasing.
Dec 3, 2011 at 12:52	comment	added	DVK		@LennartRegebro - could the reason for Rome as start of common renting be because they were AFAIR seemingly the first to combine dense urban habitation with architectural/technological ability to construct apartment buildings of many-family size for reasonable cost?
Dec 3, 2011 at 12:40	comment	added	DVK		@LennartRegebro - it seems that modern American English generally changed the meaning of the term, at least as applies to cars. Leasing is a form of financing and is not the same as renting . You are correct about the original meaning, though, based on disctionary definition. Worth asking on English SE :) As far as ancient Babylonian - I was making assumption about the translation, of course - merely not aware that the original definition of lease differed from the common colloquial one I'm used to.
Dec 3, 2011 at 10:16	comment	added	Lennart Regebro		@roman: I can't find anything on how common it was for lower classes to rent before roman times. I suspect we just don't have enough information to know that for sure.
Dec 3, 2011 at 10:13	comment	added	Lennart Regebro		@DVK: You mean "Closed-end leasing" (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed-end_leasing) . The word "lease" by itself does not mean anything else than renting. And in any case, you can't assume that ancient Babylonian would have the same sort of implications and differences between two words. The contract in itself contains nothing about property transfer, and must therefore be assumed to not include it. Hence it is a rental contract, nothing else. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lease
Dec 2, 2011 at 23:09	comment	added	roman		@DVK - you're right. I shall expand to leasing. The idea is similar.
Dec 2, 2011 at 22:58	comment	added	DVK		I'm sorry but I don't think this qualifies. It's an excellent find, but it seems to explicitly be a lease (namely, eventually the house becomes the property of the payer), as opposed to rent (where the renter never receives equity in the property). @roman - I would suggest that you either expand your question to both renting and leasing, or create a new one of leasing, so this answer can still be valid.
Dec 2, 2011 at 22:37	comment	added	roman		That's awesome! many thanks :) that means we have no "news" here about renting apartments. That's interesting though - so did we have times that we had many (lets say more than 60%) "low class" people who possessed apartments and didn't rent? I'm trying to understand if we have a new situation on our hands in those turbulent times or it's still the same world as the last thousands of years.
Dec 2, 2011 at 22:34	vote	accept	roman
Dec 2, 2011 at 20:07	history	edited	Lennart Regebro	CC BY-SA 3.0	added 114 characters in body
Dec 2, 2011 at 19:59	history	answered	Lennart Regebro	CC BY-SA 3.0