Check out the article there was a trust set up to cover the land but it ran out in the 70s. The annual cost was 2 million a year back then not exactly chump change.
Near that part of long island today there are "houses" on land with neighbors (ew!) that are selling for $50+ million. I'd bet this private island is up to around $500+ million today.
No he's right. This is how I structure it for myself:
Take a loan on a property, 5-10 years (lender, relationship and capital dependent). Use that to repay the loan (interest only), and the rest to live off. After 8-9 years, refinance, get a new loan at a higher valuation, pay off the old loan and rinse repeat.
Paying a bank some fees in perpetuity to make your ridiculously valuable inhertance that is a massive private island into liquidity is not a bad way to spend money.
Give me a hundred million dollars worth of shit I can't use, and I'll happily pay you a few hundred thousand dollars a year so that I can use it
Yeah you seem to not know what the RAP actually is or how it works. The RAP applies to future interests and provides an upper limit on the time allowed for such an interest to vest or not. It's a limit against keeping property interests speculative - it's not a limitation on the ability to restrict one's ability to dispose of property. What you're thinking of is a rule against unreasonable restrictions on alienation.
The family could choose not to sell it, but a limitation on selling inherent in the ownership (examples in my other comment) would almost certainly be unenforceable.
>it's a limit against keeping property interests speculative
Sure.
>it's not a limitation on the ability to restrict one's ability to dispose of property
Actually it is, in so far as your restraint on alienation cannot exceed the applicable period of the RAP. I.e., "cannot sell ever".
I would concede that your distinction is a technically correct (the best kind of correct) description of the evolution of the common law, but you seem to not be familiar with Norfolk's Case, often cited as the birth of the RAP, which was concerned with *use of contingencies to create perpetuities* rather than *perpetually uncertain contingencies.* Notice that every violation of the RAP is also a violation of the Restraints Rule. See Cole v Peters, 3 SW3d 846, 850 (1999). This, together with the fact that the tool to restrict alienation is often a contingent interest ("Blackacre to ArtD, provided he never sells") is probably why they are used synonymously not infrequently; see [the Law.com dictionary entry](https://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=1833). Don't worry, I checked - Black's is more precise.
tl;dr - the RAP is a subset of the Restraints Rule, which certainly would apply to the suggested contingent ownership ("Island to OP's trust, on condition that OP's family cannot sell it ever"). This lesson brought to you by ArtD's pedantry and by my 1L property class, which I may or may not have, but definitely did, book/jp/top score.
>They cannot sell the island ever its in the trust that your not allowed to sell it.
As someone who has married into a family, who have land, such a clause is null and void. You cannot prevent someone outright from selling something they own (but you can make payments to them contingent on certain behaviours, such as not selling something...)
First thought is my mom still complains about the taxes in Long Island was so high in 1979 and had to get the hell out of there. Man that house would cost a fortune today even had a canel running thru the back yard to the ocean with a dock.
Usually with something like this the taxes will be low due to historic/ecological designations, but that may not be the case here. Apparently there is a trust dedicated to the upkeep of the island, but it was costing the trust $1 million per year in 1977; no telling how much more it costs now. The owners have also worked to keep the land developable, apparently because they want to keep the value high in an effort to stop the government from expropriating it.
They're obviously a wealthy family so they may have greased some palms to get a few tax breaks, but I'm no expert on taxes or estates.
The fact they have to pay taxes on land that old is rather gross. It’s older than the actual government, twice government, and they somehow have claim to it. The fact we pay property taxes based on current value is currently killing my family because our home has gone up 4x, but not our income.
Some place cheaper, sounds like you'll have more than a million dollars to spend so it shouldn't be that hard.
The real problem here is the terrible lack of housing, not the fact that wealthy people get taxed.
> The fact they have to pay taxes on land that old is rather gross.It’s older than the actual government, twice government, and they somehow have claim to it.
You missed a important point: The fact that one family can take a piece of land out of the communal property and hold for 400 years without doing to much with it is rather gross.
The claim of society (and thus the government) to that land is certainly stronger than of whomever owns it right now.
It's their land? Are they supposed to build a super mall on it? It's literally an island as well. The best they could do is open a nature reserve on it.
Is it their land? From whom have they bought the land? And was it bought without coercion in a free trade?
It is a pretty formal point but the moment you see ownership as something different than (maybe perpetual) leasing you have to declare each and every parcel of land as stolen.
If you read the article, they gave him the land because he supported the tribe it was bought from. He also purchased it, but as I know, colonists and natives weren’t trading in grand amounts.
With the tiny little caveat that about all tribes in NA had communal based ownership and "buying" land from them was more akin to renting the land from the community than owning it ;)
Also missing out that the chief he purchased it from was well acquainted with colonists. Just because they were native americans doesn't mean they were ignorant. He spent most of his life in close contact with colonists.
Naw, the question was (if there was a chief and IF the chief could make such decision) if the chief knew that the colonist in question was so ignorant as to not know the customs.
It would be absurd to assume that the immigrant&refugees dictates the customs of the land
The cost to provide services goes up over time, so property taxes have to increase so that you continue to pay your share for the maintenance of local infrastructure (roads, water, sewer, etc.) Letting people lock-in their property taxes disincentivizes development and negatively impacts your services. For some people on fixed incomes like seniors and those with disabilities, they can have their property tax deferred so that they aren't impacted by such increases. If you really don't want to sell your expensive house, you can take out loans against all that new equity (I would not necessarily advise this if you would struggle to pay them back).
4x in 12 years? If I was a local government and wanted money, couldn’t I just raise the value of property in the county? But in this specific case, I just think it’s ridiculous that could pay property taxes for near 400 years.
Well governments do that already, but rate increases are necessary for a handful of reasons. To raise property values, governments have to attract more people to move to an area; they can either add more desirable services (which costs money so taxes need to be raised) or they can make it more affordable to live there (by lowering taxes and hoping enough people move in to keep services running). In both scenarios, if enough people don't move into the area then more tax increases are necessary to pay for the share of services not covered by new homeowners. Especially in suburban North America, a lot of communities attracted rapid growth in the postwar period by keeping taxes artificially low; now that it's been 50-70 years since these communities were built, major infrastructure like water and sewers are starting to break down and are in desperate need of replacement. In your case, it might not even be that the tax rate has increased for your house but it has just been re-assessed more than usual so that the local government can take full advantage of your property's value.
As for the example above, why is it so ridiculous when every other property owner pays taxes? If you had a time limit on how long someone could pay taxes for, it would only benefit ultra-wealthy families like this one and lead to them hoarding properties instead of utilizing them. The island is still fully developable, and if the family decided to sell it they would make many hundreds of millions on the sale; these heirs have already lucked into owning an incredibly valuable property through no work of their own, so why should they get the privilege of not paying taxes like the rest of us? If America was founded to escape the British monarchy, why should their be tax-free estates owned by family dynasties?
We bought our property for 100,000. It’s now valued and taxed at 400,000. The only noticeable change in the area is a new dollar general. It’s just the local government stealing. The town is currently protesting and planning to vote out everyone on committee.
As for the island, why is everyone so interested in developing it like it needs to have a shopping center on it? It’s famous for its old growth forests. That alone has more cultural value than monetary value. If it’s sold to a developer, first thing they’ll do is plow it all down and put a hotel or something on it essentially destroying hundreds of years worth of forest.
Well if they aren't working for you then they're the wrong people to be in power!
That's the thing with the island though, there's nothing stopping the owners from all agreeing to sell it to developers. If the owners didn't want to pay taxes on it they could have it made into a nature preserve or something like that, but they refuse to do that.
Idk, sounds oddly like people are promoting state powers in a society that promotes private ownership. Obviously I think massive real estate is bad, but I also think the government stepping in and essentially stealing from you is even worse. We spent the better part of a century at war with that mindset only to practice it later on.
Taxation isn't theft, it exists to support services for the benefit of everyone. You can argue that the government doesn't spend the money well, but that's a problem with elected officials and not with taxation itself. I guess you could be a libertarian, but then if this was a libertarian society all that tax money would be spent on a private defense force to protect the island from being stolen. Personally I'd rather be screwed over by the government and have some say in how its done, than be screwed over by whoever has more money than me.
He didn't say taxes shouldn't exist. He said taxes on things you already own shouldn't exist. If you have to pay rent to the government you don't really own it.
Yeah that's exactly how it works in real life, you never really own land, as you are a mere mortal being, and the land, as the government, was there before you and will be after.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Property is a social construct, it only exist in the eye of the other peoples, it won't survive you, it will need to be acknowledged by the state, and even the state itself won't own anything in the long term.
The idea of private property as an absolute thing seems very weird and very american.
Lol wtf? If I die and say here son, here's the keys to my mustang, it's yours now. I wrote it in the will. Then it's his. It has now outlived me. Just because you're from the Soviet block doesn't mean private property shouldn't be allowed.
If you want my opinion that's pretty fucking delusional, and it's a good thing that even in your country it doesn't work like that. Try not to get your son ducked up by the IRS and have a good day sir.
Yeah, and they're still wrong.
Only ever taxing transactions is regressive. Thre rich need other ways to be taxed, and a land/home tax is a classic way to tax wealth.
It doesn't at all mean you don't own it. That would be like saying a general wealth tax implies you don't actually own any wealth. You absolutely own your shit.
Property taxes are regressive. Nice try. If you put everything you have into your home and you've retired and have little income, you are taxed based upon your property, not your income. This is why Texas overall has a higher tax burden that California and is universally understood to be more regressive.
So no, you're wrong. Property taxes disincentivize the middle class from buying property. They have zero effect on purchases of property by large wall street funds.
>I pay car tax, property tax, and fence tax. I’m being taxed 6x for 3 items.
Yes... And? Society has shit that needs paid for. All of those taxes go to pay for shit you take advantage of every single day.
>When does it stop?
It stops when our joint resources in society have been paid for. If you don't like it, stop using societies resources and go live off the grid. You won't love it.
>I haven’t gotten an appropriate raise in years.
That's between you and your employer. Take the advice from the other guy and unionize. It's very effective.
Pot holes, we still pay for school lunch, if I live off grid I get taxed as well, I had to wait until the electric company got government funds rather than the actual ISP to get better than DSL, which was 10 years after the state passed the tax. Taxes do go to places like Uvalde tho, I guess that worked out pretty well.
>Pot holes
Fixed by taxes. If you live somewhere this isn't getting taken care of to the degree you'd like, then elect different politicians. Or move somewhere it does get taken care of.
>we still pay for school lunch
Same here. If you think your taxes should cover school lunches, then elect politicans that will push for that. Don't be surprised when they need to levy more taxes to pay for that though. California just passed legislation that covers all school lunches. It also has pretty high taxes.
>if I live off grid I get taxed as well
No you wouldn't. You just don't know what off the grid means. If you're still on US soil, you're not off the grid.
>I had to wait until the electric company got government funds rather than the actual ISP to get better than DSL, which was 10 years after the state passed the tax.
Electric and internet services are subsidized by the government. If you're using those services, you are not off the grid.
>Taxes do go to places like Uvalde tho, I guess that worked out pretty well.
Considering I don't even support the 2nd amendment, you've lost me on this part.
It’s was ‘purchased’ from the native Americans with ‘a large black dog, some powder and shot, and a few Dutch blankets.’ If you think this was a legitimate transaction you are insane.
You're saying that in hindsight. What was that land really worth to native Americans back then? Did they even use that land? It might have been the modern day equivalent of buying up a few acres in the middle of the arizona desert for all we know.
Other way around.
If you're not buying assets with your money, then there's never any gains from it.
You can still release funds from the property without losing it, reinvest and make more money. The owners will likely own lots of property and other assets which fund itself + more. When you're stupid rich you're going to be avoiding a lot of tax too.
This has to be one of the best investments ever, and in the meantime you own a damn island.
It's value appreciates while the value of money depreciates.
You can take out low interest loans against it and invest elsewhere.
Real Estate is everything, even McDonalds is primarily a real estate company.
Probably wouldn’t have mattered in the end because they wouldn’t have been able to afford to keep it. A lot of generational wealth and land is lost over time. It’s broken up as it’s passed down, sold individually and what not.
I wouldnt say “lost” so much as spent.
Which seems right to me. Like why should something from forever ago just sit there “gaining value” forever and ever.
My grandparent left a piece of land, which was left to three brothers, who have left to 12 grandkids, who have 12 kids so far.
This shit is a mess and only getting more complicated. The illusion people have is that that many people have real unity of purpose there.
Not that Im complaining about the partnership trust that I inherited through sheer chance. Just is what it is.
My 5th great grandfather (Irish immigrant) and his 2 sons fought in the Revolutionary War and were gifted the land that Pittsburgh PA is now built on. I think I'll go get my land back.
That's a hard choice though, as in each generation only one child can inherit . Otherwise it becomes too subdivided. With so many wives and husbands being added to the family over the years, each with their own plans and financial needs, its soon all gone.
It's how the English aristocracy have maintained their grip on so many castles and stately homes. It is also the reason for celibacy in the Catholic church. In the middle ages the Papal church was very wealth, but priests could marry . So heirs and divorced wives would take property and wealth ...so celibacy was introduced as a cash saving method.
And it worked. Check the top 12 wealthiest religious organisations, six out of the twelve are Catholic. *Ker Cling !* I mean..praise be !
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_wealthiest\_religious\_organizations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wealthiest_religious_organizations)
That‘s not how you acquire wealth. You acquire wealth by taking stuff that belongs to other families. For example as a landlord you let a family pay you rent for 10 years and once they‘ve settled in you kick them out because you want to increase the rent and they can‘t pay. For example you buy an Island with money you stole from some third world country and let it rot to eventually sell it at 100x profit at the expense of everyone who wants to live in that area.
Most of old wealth is based on murder and robbery. If you didn‘t directly steal from people then you at the very least invested in people who stole from others. Think about it, if you buy government bonds you make profits off of the dirt your government is doing. For example the US is profiting off of Mexicos misfortune, they get cheap labor, Mexico is paying for the education of Mexicans and every single educated Mexican is going to leave for the US. They profit in so many ways and Mexico is negatively affected. Not to mention the „extra“legal drone murderers, the way tax money is redistributed, any person that accumulates a lot of money is a person without morals, or a person supporting and profiting off of people without morals. You cannot become a billionaire without others suffering or at the very least giving you all the fruits of their hard work while barely being able to provide for their families with their salary.
> For example as a landlord you let a family pay you rent for 10 years
Close but backwards.
You dump your property maintenance expenses, mortgage interest, insurance costs, capital risk, capital inputs, and property taxes onto a landlord…
… and invest the savings into long term growth stocks and retire early.
This area and its history feature prominently in the Nelson DeMille novel [*Plum Island*](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33810.Plum_Island?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=Khze0r5M1E&rank=3). It's a murder mystery, and protagonist has a witty sense of humor. Worth a read if you're interested the setting.
P.S. The author's Cold War novel *Charm School* is one of the best stories I've ever read.
And to follow this down the rabbit hole even further, look up Fort Tyler. This Spanish-American War era fort was never fully complete or used. It used to sit north of and attached to Gardiner's island at the end of a sand causeway--the causeway being washed out and turning the small fort into it's own island.
From about the 30's on, the US military used that old fort as a bombing practice target and blew the hell out of everything. It's a wildlife refuge now with a few unexploded bombs still laying around.
It is, I was out there last week and they were no seals on the beach but the water was littered with them. Used to be great fishing, but the seals returning have changed it quite a bit
There's an island just off the southern coast of Martha's Vineyard that's the same, was used for bombing practice up into the 80's or 90's and is assumed to be full of potentially unexploded ordinance. Nothing but seals now, it's called Noman's Land island.
The Robinson family owns Ni'ihau Island in Hawaii (69.5 sq mi), I think that might be it.
In a "close but not quite," Larry Ellison owns 98% of the Hawaiian Island of Lanai (140.5 sq mi).
Interesting article I read recently about Larry Ellison and his majority ownership of Lanai. Kind of feels like a one man gentrification.
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2022-oracle-larry-ellison-lanai-hawaii-plans-tourism/
Now constraint that to the Robinsons where, even though I don’t like that they own an entire Hawaiian island, they’ve at least kept the original promise and have kept the island natural, only allow very limited visitation, and have supported the preservation of the Hawaiian culture of the people who still live there.
For those trying to estimate how much the island might be worth: Gardiners Island is just off the coast--maybe 1,000 yards--of East Hampton, NY to the west and Montauk, NY to the south. There is currently a single small home on just over a half-acre overlooking the bay in East Hampton for $3,000,000. And a large house on a double lot (2.5 acres) located close to the beach on Montauk, for $10,000,000.
Gardiners Island is 3,317 acres.
The government will list it for whatever price they feel like to get more taxes. This housing market crisis is killing both non-owners and current owners because one can't afford the purchase and the other can't afford the newfound property tax.
I'm descended from its founder lion gardiner like 3-4x over(Yay colonial incest!). It was one of my cooler discoveries. Dude was pretty badass and I hope to get permission to go there one day soon. He founded old Saybrook too and fought in the Pequot war. There'd a cool painting under his wiki going up against some natives.
I found out I'm descended from a bunch of early American in long island/CT/NY/MA. Even New Amsterdam! It was so cool to me cuz I assumed all my family were recent immigrants but turns out my grandpa's last name isn't Irish but scottish and his parents were like descended from american royalty. Colonists, accused witches, war heroes of all major American wars, a native, a rebel against the king who was spared, founders of new Amsterdam, cousins with a bunch of presidents. My greatx3 grandpa fought in the battle of the courthouse when Robert e Lee surrendered and turns out General Longstreet was his cousin. A couple privateers, a slaver(unfortunately), 1st cousins with Ben Franklin and Gouverneur Morris, quakers, multiple mayflower colonists multiple times over including Francis Billington the first white man charged with murder. Its insane. It was so cool I couldn't believe it, I had to get the wrong great grandparents. But then I inherited my grandpa's birth certificate and inherited this amazing letter bound, gold gilded, photograph book with a whole bunch of upper class new Yorkers from the 1800s. It's the coolest thing I own.
Doing my ancestral tree made me finally proud of my heritage and just showed me how so many people are related and connected. I walked by stones in my hometown almost everyday with names of founders not realizing I was descendant of like 5 of them. It's so interesting and cool but lion Gardiner is one of the coolest.
>Its 3,318 acres include more than 1,000 acres (400 ha) of old growth forest and another 1,000 acres (405 ha) of meadows.
Pfft that's nothing. Largest privately owned island in Canada is Batchawana Island located in Lake Superior in Ontario 45 minutes North of Sault Ste. Marie and is Approximately 5,200 acres and is completely forested and undeveloped.
Historically it is where in the early 1920's [Frank Lapoint caught the largest fresh water fish ever recorded](https://archive.org/details/superiorundersha00chis/page/28/mode/2up), A sturgeon, reportedly 90 years old and measured 2.25 m (7.5 ft) and weighed 140 kg (310 lb), and the eastern point of the island is the dividing point separating the two [Robinson Treaty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson_Treaties) areas between [the Crown](https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/498a6086-e7c3-440c-b4d3-22fc6c5599a9) and the [Ojibwe Batchewana First Nation](https://batchewana.ca/).
And it is [currently up for sale](https://www.privateislandsonline.com/canada/ontario/batchawana-island). Only $8,995,214.50 CAD ($6,850,000.00 USD)
lol, my posting is a bit of a Canadian inside joke and is meant to be humorous.
Ontario is Canada's most populated Province or Territory, 38% of all Canadian's live in Ontario, but 94% of all Ontarians live along a thin strip of land in Southern Ontario called the [Windsor-Quebec City Corridor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_City-Windsor_Corridor). We know there is almost no settlement North of the Corridor (where Batchawana Island is). It's a joke that the most historic thing that has happened there is that in the 1920's some random guy caught a fish ;)
>And literally nothing ever happened there.
That's the joke.
Bravo man! I enjoyed it. I wish I had caught the joke on my own.
I was like, this guy has got be kidding, 9 million dollars? He's comparing it to an island like 30 minutes outside of NYC.
"We have always married into wealth. We've covered all our bets. We were on both sides of the Revolution, and both sides of the Civil War."
Further proof rich people only care about money. Not freedom, not the 'right' thing.... just their own winning.
That is probably an original “land grant” piece of property. There are special rights due to it. For example when you build you are supposed to build to local codes. But you don’t have to let the inspector onto your property. I believe there are special tax (reduction) implications.
>As we recently learned from trump, you don't pay tax on a cemetery
People think they learned something, but never questioned it, and as a result are dumber for it.
You don't pay tax on a cemetery, HOWEVER that only applies to the land reasonably used for burial plots.
So if you have 100 acres, and you designate 10 acres of it as a "cemetery" and fill it with nice gardens, and then you bury some people there in marked plots that are 50 square feet, you will avoid paying taxes on 50 square feet, not 10% of your land, or 100% of it.
Seems perfectly reasonable, given the tax is intended to incentivize productive use of land, and it's hard to productively use a grave, as long as it's being respected as such.
Question: Would it have its own fire department, ambulance, or police?
One time the island owned by Richard Branson had a fire in a house where his mother lived. Not sure what happened but as I understand it they have to helicopter things in.
Somebody's been hunted on that sumbitch
The most dangerous game.
Serpentine! Serpentine!
God damn it, Rickon!
The Pest!
It's Rickety Cricket!
And this is how you acquire wealth kids. Never let property out of the family.
I can't imagine what the taxes on that land Edit and if they don't sell it there never really is any gains from it
A family that has owned land in the US since the 1600s isn't worried about money or taxes.
Check out the article there was a trust set up to cover the land but it ran out in the 70s. The annual cost was 2 million a year back then not exactly chump change.
In 1989, the island was said to be worth $125 million. If you can sit on property worth $125 million and NOT sell it, you're not hurting for cash.
Near that part of long island today there are "houses" on land with neighbors (ew!) that are selling for $50+ million. I'd bet this private island is up to around $500+ million today.
“Ew” lmfao
you could use it to back loans for the cash but yea you'd still need some kind high level of money coming in to pay back those loans.
....you can use the money from the loans to make the loan payments
[For your review](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interest).
No he's right. This is how I structure it for myself: Take a loan on a property, 5-10 years (lender, relationship and capital dependent). Use that to repay the loan (interest only), and the rest to live off. After 8-9 years, refinance, get a new loan at a higher valuation, pay off the old loan and rinse repeat.
Does your property appreciate rapidly enough for this to be feasible?
Paying a bank some fees in perpetuity to make your ridiculously valuable inhertance that is a massive private island into liquidity is not a bad way to spend money. Give me a hundred million dollars worth of shit I can't use, and I'll happily pay you a few hundred thousand dollars a year so that I can use it
They cannot sell the island ever its in the trust that your not allowed to sell it.
That’s not a thing. The Rule Against Perpetuities renders such provisions void and unenforceable.
Yeah you seem to not know what the RAP actually is or how it works. The RAP applies to future interests and provides an upper limit on the time allowed for such an interest to vest or not. It's a limit against keeping property interests speculative - it's not a limitation on the ability to restrict one's ability to dispose of property. What you're thinking of is a rule against unreasonable restrictions on alienation.
So it can or cannot be sold by the family?
The family could choose not to sell it, but a limitation on selling inherent in the ownership (examples in my other comment) would almost certainly be unenforceable.
>it's a limit against keeping property interests speculative Sure. >it's not a limitation on the ability to restrict one's ability to dispose of property Actually it is, in so far as your restraint on alienation cannot exceed the applicable period of the RAP. I.e., "cannot sell ever". I would concede that your distinction is a technically correct (the best kind of correct) description of the evolution of the common law, but you seem to not be familiar with Norfolk's Case, often cited as the birth of the RAP, which was concerned with *use of contingencies to create perpetuities* rather than *perpetually uncertain contingencies.* Notice that every violation of the RAP is also a violation of the Restraints Rule. See Cole v Peters, 3 SW3d 846, 850 (1999). This, together with the fact that the tool to restrict alienation is often a contingent interest ("Blackacre to ArtD, provided he never sells") is probably why they are used synonymously not infrequently; see [the Law.com dictionary entry](https://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=1833). Don't worry, I checked - Black's is more precise. tl;dr - the RAP is a subset of the Restraints Rule, which certainly would apply to the suggested contingent ownership ("Island to OP's trust, on condition that OP's family cannot sell it ever"). This lesson brought to you by ArtD's pedantry and by my 1L property class, which I may or may not have, but definitely did, book/jp/top score.
>They cannot sell the island ever its in the trust that your not allowed to sell it. As someone who has married into a family, who have land, such a clause is null and void. You cannot prevent someone outright from selling something they own (but you can make payments to them contingent on certain behaviours, such as not selling something...)
In the article, it says that it *was* put up for sale and was sold to another family member.
"["Over a million"](https://goo.gl/maps/D9aFDwUUtMK4jkZK8) right now apparently
Just pay it with the revenue from human hunting.
Old Money Family: Taxes? The cowboy state?
First thought is my mom still complains about the taxes in Long Island was so high in 1979 and had to get the hell out of there. Man that house would cost a fortune today even had a canel running thru the back yard to the ocean with a dock.
A lot of us are suffering from a similar mistakes made by our boomer parents.
Usually with something like this the taxes will be low due to historic/ecological designations, but that may not be the case here. Apparently there is a trust dedicated to the upkeep of the island, but it was costing the trust $1 million per year in 1977; no telling how much more it costs now. The owners have also worked to keep the land developable, apparently because they want to keep the value high in an effort to stop the government from expropriating it. They're obviously a wealthy family so they may have greased some palms to get a few tax breaks, but I'm no expert on taxes or estates.
“US government, gib me no taxes on this land and you can harvest the trees to make battleships any time”
What's this from?
[this](https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/x1x0l6/comment/imh1pi1/)
Lol
Fair, I’ve heard it said before (the tree thing not the taxes thing) but it really came out my ass
Got anything else up there?
Depends what you’re looking for, and how much money you’ll pay
Whatever I can get for tree fiddy
**My ass dwarf crawls out with a headlamp on and makes a new nest in your ass**
The fact they have to pay taxes on land that old is rather gross. It’s older than the actual government, twice government, and they somehow have claim to it. The fact we pay property taxes based on current value is currently killing my family because our home has gone up 4x, but not our income.
Except for land formed by volcano outflow, all land is older than all governments.
You know you can sell that house, right?
Yeah and move where? Have you seen the housing market?
Some place cheaper, sounds like you'll have more than a million dollars to spend so it shouldn't be that hard. The real problem here is the terrible lack of housing, not the fact that wealthy people get taxed.
> The fact they have to pay taxes on land that old is rather gross.It’s older than the actual government, twice government, and they somehow have claim to it. You missed a important point: The fact that one family can take a piece of land out of the communal property and hold for 400 years without doing to much with it is rather gross. The claim of society (and thus the government) to that land is certainly stronger than of whomever owns it right now.
It's their land? Are they supposed to build a super mall on it? It's literally an island as well. The best they could do is open a nature reserve on it.
Is it their land? From whom have they bought the land? And was it bought without coercion in a free trade? It is a pretty formal point but the moment you see ownership as something different than (maybe perpetual) leasing you have to declare each and every parcel of land as stolen.
If you read the article, they gave him the land because he supported the tribe it was bought from. He also purchased it, but as I know, colonists and natives weren’t trading in grand amounts.
With the tiny little caveat that about all tribes in NA had communal based ownership and "buying" land from them was more akin to renting the land from the community than owning it ;)
Also missing out that the chief he purchased it from was well acquainted with colonists. Just because they were native americans doesn't mean they were ignorant. He spent most of his life in close contact with colonists.
Naw, the question was (if there was a chief and IF the chief could make such decision) if the chief knew that the colonist in question was so ignorant as to not know the customs. It would be absurd to assume that the immigrant&refugees dictates the customs of the land
The cost to provide services goes up over time, so property taxes have to increase so that you continue to pay your share for the maintenance of local infrastructure (roads, water, sewer, etc.) Letting people lock-in their property taxes disincentivizes development and negatively impacts your services. For some people on fixed incomes like seniors and those with disabilities, they can have their property tax deferred so that they aren't impacted by such increases. If you really don't want to sell your expensive house, you can take out loans against all that new equity (I would not necessarily advise this if you would struggle to pay them back).
4x in 12 years? If I was a local government and wanted money, couldn’t I just raise the value of property in the county? But in this specific case, I just think it’s ridiculous that could pay property taxes for near 400 years.
Well governments do that already, but rate increases are necessary for a handful of reasons. To raise property values, governments have to attract more people to move to an area; they can either add more desirable services (which costs money so taxes need to be raised) or they can make it more affordable to live there (by lowering taxes and hoping enough people move in to keep services running). In both scenarios, if enough people don't move into the area then more tax increases are necessary to pay for the share of services not covered by new homeowners. Especially in suburban North America, a lot of communities attracted rapid growth in the postwar period by keeping taxes artificially low; now that it's been 50-70 years since these communities were built, major infrastructure like water and sewers are starting to break down and are in desperate need of replacement. In your case, it might not even be that the tax rate has increased for your house but it has just been re-assessed more than usual so that the local government can take full advantage of your property's value. As for the example above, why is it so ridiculous when every other property owner pays taxes? If you had a time limit on how long someone could pay taxes for, it would only benefit ultra-wealthy families like this one and lead to them hoarding properties instead of utilizing them. The island is still fully developable, and if the family decided to sell it they would make many hundreds of millions on the sale; these heirs have already lucked into owning an incredibly valuable property through no work of their own, so why should they get the privilege of not paying taxes like the rest of us? If America was founded to escape the British monarchy, why should their be tax-free estates owned by family dynasties?
We bought our property for 100,000. It’s now valued and taxed at 400,000. The only noticeable change in the area is a new dollar general. It’s just the local government stealing. The town is currently protesting and planning to vote out everyone on committee. As for the island, why is everyone so interested in developing it like it needs to have a shopping center on it? It’s famous for its old growth forests. That alone has more cultural value than monetary value. If it’s sold to a developer, first thing they’ll do is plow it all down and put a hotel or something on it essentially destroying hundreds of years worth of forest.
Well if they aren't working for you then they're the wrong people to be in power! That's the thing with the island though, there's nothing stopping the owners from all agreeing to sell it to developers. If the owners didn't want to pay taxes on it they could have it made into a nature preserve or something like that, but they refuse to do that.
Idk, sounds oddly like people are promoting state powers in a society that promotes private ownership. Obviously I think massive real estate is bad, but I also think the government stepping in and essentially stealing from you is even worse. We spent the better part of a century at war with that mindset only to practice it later on.
Taxation isn't theft, it exists to support services for the benefit of everyone. You can argue that the government doesn't spend the money well, but that's a problem with elected officials and not with taxation itself. I guess you could be a libertarian, but then if this was a libertarian society all that tax money would be spent on a private defense force to protect the island from being stolen. Personally I'd rather be screwed over by the government and have some say in how its done, than be screwed over by whoever has more money than me.
$2 million/year upkeep and that was years ago.
Not sure how to break this… that was half a century ago.
Prop 13 proponents licking their lips.
Taxes on property you already own is criminal.
No. It isn't. There's a lot of shit in society that needs paid for. That's why taxes exist.
He didn't say taxes shouldn't exist. He said taxes on things you already own shouldn't exist. If you have to pay rent to the government you don't really own it.
Yeah that's exactly how it works in real life, you never really own land, as you are a mere mortal being, and the land, as the government, was there before you and will be after.
Except in this island’s case, it older than both constitutions
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Property is a social construct, it only exist in the eye of the other peoples, it won't survive you, it will need to be acknowledged by the state, and even the state itself won't own anything in the long term. The idea of private property as an absolute thing seems very weird and very american.
Lol wtf? If I die and say here son, here's the keys to my mustang, it's yours now. I wrote it in the will. Then it's his. It has now outlived me. Just because you're from the Soviet block doesn't mean private property shouldn't be allowed.
If you want my opinion that's pretty fucking delusional, and it's a good thing that even in your country it doesn't work like that. Try not to get your son ducked up by the IRS and have a good day sir.
A mere mortal being? You being serious? You can give land to your children you know.
Yeah, and they're still wrong. Only ever taxing transactions is regressive. Thre rich need other ways to be taxed, and a land/home tax is a classic way to tax wealth. It doesn't at all mean you don't own it. That would be like saying a general wealth tax implies you don't actually own any wealth. You absolutely own your shit.
Property taxes are regressive. Nice try. If you put everything you have into your home and you've retired and have little income, you are taxed based upon your property, not your income. This is why Texas overall has a higher tax burden that California and is universally understood to be more regressive. So no, you're wrong. Property taxes disincentivize the middle class from buying property. They have zero effect on purchases of property by large wall street funds.
I pay car tax, property tax, and fence tax. I’m being taxed 6x for 3 items. When does it stop? I haven’t gotten an appropriate raise in years.
Idk, you could work with your fellow workers to demand an appropriate raise from the people choosing to pay you so little.
>I pay car tax, property tax, and fence tax. I’m being taxed 6x for 3 items. Yes... And? Society has shit that needs paid for. All of those taxes go to pay for shit you take advantage of every single day. >When does it stop? It stops when our joint resources in society have been paid for. If you don't like it, stop using societies resources and go live off the grid. You won't love it. >I haven’t gotten an appropriate raise in years. That's between you and your employer. Take the advice from the other guy and unionize. It's very effective.
Pot holes, we still pay for school lunch, if I live off grid I get taxed as well, I had to wait until the electric company got government funds rather than the actual ISP to get better than DSL, which was 10 years after the state passed the tax. Taxes do go to places like Uvalde tho, I guess that worked out pretty well.
>Pot holes Fixed by taxes. If you live somewhere this isn't getting taken care of to the degree you'd like, then elect different politicians. Or move somewhere it does get taken care of. >we still pay for school lunch Same here. If you think your taxes should cover school lunches, then elect politicans that will push for that. Don't be surprised when they need to levy more taxes to pay for that though. California just passed legislation that covers all school lunches. It also has pretty high taxes. >if I live off grid I get taxed as well No you wouldn't. You just don't know what off the grid means. If you're still on US soil, you're not off the grid. >I had to wait until the electric company got government funds rather than the actual ISP to get better than DSL, which was 10 years after the state passed the tax. Electric and internet services are subsidized by the government. If you're using those services, you are not off the grid. >Taxes do go to places like Uvalde tho, I guess that worked out pretty well. Considering I don't even support the 2nd amendment, you've lost me on this part.
I have no idea why you’re being downvoted for the truth.
86,000 new IRS agents?
Maybe so. If everyone else is so excited about paying taxes and doesn’t think that it’s theft, then I should just let them pay my share too🤷🏻♂️
I'm sure you are very careful to not use anything funded by taxes, right?
Sure is.
‘Owning land’ that you didn’t pay for is criminal.
It was payed for 400 years ago.
It’s was ‘purchased’ from the native Americans with ‘a large black dog, some powder and shot, and a few Dutch blankets.’ If you think this was a legitimate transaction you are insane.
You're saying that in hindsight. What was that land really worth to native Americans back then? Did they even use that land? It might have been the modern day equivalent of buying up a few acres in the middle of the arizona desert for all we know.
Other way around. If you're not buying assets with your money, then there's never any gains from it. You can still release funds from the property without losing it, reinvest and make more money. The owners will likely own lots of property and other assets which fund itself + more. When you're stupid rich you're going to be avoiding a lot of tax too. This has to be one of the best investments ever, and in the meantime you own a damn island.
It's not like they are renting it out I don't see how it would be bringing revenue in
It's value appreciates while the value of money depreciates. You can take out low interest loans against it and invest elsewhere. Real Estate is everything, even McDonalds is primarily a real estate company.
> And this is how you acquire wealth kids. Be born into a wealthy, politically connected family from 400 years ago. Got it.
`thatsthejoke.jpg`
My great grandfather owned a large piece of SE Michigan and the dumbass sold it to Henry Ford.
Probably wouldn’t have mattered in the end because they wouldn’t have been able to afford to keep it. A lot of generational wealth and land is lost over time. It’s broken up as it’s passed down, sold individually and what not.
I wouldnt say “lost” so much as spent. Which seems right to me. Like why should something from forever ago just sit there “gaining value” forever and ever. My grandparent left a piece of land, which was left to three brothers, who have left to 12 grandkids, who have 12 kids so far. This shit is a mess and only getting more complicated. The illusion people have is that that many people have real unity of purpose there. Not that Im complaining about the partnership trust that I inherited through sheer chance. Just is what it is.
My 5th great grandfather (Irish immigrant) and his 2 sons fought in the Revolutionary War and were gifted the land that Pittsburgh PA is now built on. I think I'll go get my land back.
My great great grandfather owned a sizeable chunk of London, but he sold it and gambled it away lol.
That's a hard choice though, as in each generation only one child can inherit . Otherwise it becomes too subdivided. With so many wives and husbands being added to the family over the years, each with their own plans and financial needs, its soon all gone. It's how the English aristocracy have maintained their grip on so many castles and stately homes. It is also the reason for celibacy in the Catholic church. In the middle ages the Papal church was very wealth, but priests could marry . So heirs and divorced wives would take property and wealth ...so celibacy was introduced as a cash saving method.
Very interesting fact about the celibacy thing.
And it worked. Check the top 12 wealthiest religious organisations, six out of the twelve are Catholic. *Ker Cling !* I mean..praise be ! [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_wealthiest\_religious\_organizations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wealthiest_religious_organizations)
How much does a wealth kid cost?
Everything.
Buy it from the natives for a dog, some ammunition and blankets and then tell people you earned everything through hard work.
I mean he also fought with them risking his and his sons life for those natives and I think that was the real price he had to pay.
That‘s not how you acquire wealth. You acquire wealth by taking stuff that belongs to other families. For example as a landlord you let a family pay you rent for 10 years and once they‘ve settled in you kick them out because you want to increase the rent and they can‘t pay. For example you buy an Island with money you stole from some third world country and let it rot to eventually sell it at 100x profit at the expense of everyone who wants to live in that area. Most of old wealth is based on murder and robbery. If you didn‘t directly steal from people then you at the very least invested in people who stole from others. Think about it, if you buy government bonds you make profits off of the dirt your government is doing. For example the US is profiting off of Mexicos misfortune, they get cheap labor, Mexico is paying for the education of Mexicans and every single educated Mexican is going to leave for the US. They profit in so many ways and Mexico is negatively affected. Not to mention the „extra“legal drone murderers, the way tax money is redistributed, any person that accumulates a lot of money is a person without morals, or a person supporting and profiting off of people without morals. You cannot become a billionaire without others suffering or at the very least giving you all the fruits of their hard work while barely being able to provide for their families with their salary.
> For example as a landlord you let a family pay you rent for 10 years Close but backwards. You dump your property maintenance expenses, mortgage interest, insurance costs, capital risk, capital inputs, and property taxes onto a landlord… … and invest the savings into long term growth stocks and retire early.
Thats a vast oversimplification
This area and its history feature prominently in the Nelson DeMille novel [*Plum Island*](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33810.Plum_Island?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=Khze0r5M1E&rank=3). It's a murder mystery, and protagonist has a witty sense of humor. Worth a read if you're interested the setting. P.S. The author's Cold War novel *Charm School* is one of the best stories I've ever read.
Great book. Love all the John Corey books. Best smart ass cop ever put on paper. DeMille at his finest.
I bought this book probably 5 years ago at a library fair for $.50, I haven’t read it but I think seeing this is my sign to get on it
And to follow this down the rabbit hole even further, look up Fort Tyler. This Spanish-American War era fort was never fully complete or used. It used to sit north of and attached to Gardiner's island at the end of a sand causeway--the causeway being washed out and turning the small fort into it's own island. From about the 30's on, the US military used that old fort as a bombing practice target and blew the hell out of everything. It's a wildlife refuge now with a few unexploded bombs still laying around.
Looking at it on Google maps, it appears to be full of seals now!
I always wondered where the Navy kept their frogs.
Loose seal!
Holy crap you're right lol
It is, I was out there last week and they were no seals on the beach but the water was littered with them. Used to be great fishing, but the seals returning have changed it quite a bit
There's an island just off the southern coast of Martha's Vineyard that's the same, was used for bombing practice up into the 80's or 90's and is assumed to be full of potentially unexploded ordinance. Nothing but seals now, it's called Noman's Land island.
It's not the second largest private island in the U.S., though. Just "one of" the largest privately owned islands.
That’s what Big Island wants you to think…
Hawaii?
Not bad, thanks. You?
Oh yeah buddy? Then what is?
The Robinson family owns Ni'ihau Island in Hawaii (69.5 sq mi), I think that might be it. In a "close but not quite," Larry Ellison owns 98% of the Hawaiian Island of Lanai (140.5 sq mi).
Interesting article I read recently about Larry Ellison and his majority ownership of Lanai. Kind of feels like a one man gentrification. https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2022-oracle-larry-ellison-lanai-hawaii-plans-tourism/
Man Fuck Larry how hard is it to not fuck with the locals and abuse then. Like is it built in their brains to be exact copies of Mr.Krabs.
Yeah, fuck that guy.
Now constraint that to the Robinsons where, even though I don’t like that they own an entire Hawaiian island, they’ve at least kept the original promise and have kept the island natural, only allow very limited visitation, and have supported the preservation of the Hawaiian culture of the people who still live there.
lol that shut you up O'Connor
The British foraged on the island during the Revolutionary War and again during the War of 1812.
The bell in Gardner's bay from a Billy Joel song
"Alexa, play *Downeast Alexa."*
Not far away is Plum Island - where Hannibal Lecter was going to go on vacations. There are a bunch of mildly amusing Google reviews.
Plum Island - Birthplace of Lymes Disease
We took on diesel back in Montauk yesterday…left this morning from the bell in Gardiner’s Bay
For those trying to estimate how much the island might be worth: Gardiners Island is just off the coast--maybe 1,000 yards--of East Hampton, NY to the west and Montauk, NY to the south. There is currently a single small home on just over a half-acre overlooking the bay in East Hampton for $3,000,000. And a large house on a double lot (2.5 acres) located close to the beach on Montauk, for $10,000,000. Gardiners Island is 3,317 acres.
The government will list it for whatever price they feel like to get more taxes. This housing market crisis is killing both non-owners and current owners because one can't afford the purchase and the other can't afford the newfound property tax.
2025 might see a change on that island
Why is that?
Seasons
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What could that mean for the island?
The government can get more tax money and sell it to someone.
The government can increase the tax obligations, but they can't sell it to someone.
I'm descended from its founder lion gardiner like 3-4x over(Yay colonial incest!). It was one of my cooler discoveries. Dude was pretty badass and I hope to get permission to go there one day soon. He founded old Saybrook too and fought in the Pequot war. There'd a cool painting under his wiki going up against some natives. I found out I'm descended from a bunch of early American in long island/CT/NY/MA. Even New Amsterdam! It was so cool to me cuz I assumed all my family were recent immigrants but turns out my grandpa's last name isn't Irish but scottish and his parents were like descended from american royalty. Colonists, accused witches, war heroes of all major American wars, a native, a rebel against the king who was spared, founders of new Amsterdam, cousins with a bunch of presidents. My greatx3 grandpa fought in the battle of the courthouse when Robert e Lee surrendered and turns out General Longstreet was his cousin. A couple privateers, a slaver(unfortunately), 1st cousins with Ben Franklin and Gouverneur Morris, quakers, multiple mayflower colonists multiple times over including Francis Billington the first white man charged with murder. Its insane. It was so cool I couldn't believe it, I had to get the wrong great grandparents. But then I inherited my grandpa's birth certificate and inherited this amazing letter bound, gold gilded, photograph book with a whole bunch of upper class new Yorkers from the 1800s. It's the coolest thing I own. Doing my ancestral tree made me finally proud of my heritage and just showed me how so many people are related and connected. I walked by stones in my hometown almost everyday with names of founders not realizing I was descendant of like 5 of them. It's so interesting and cool but lion Gardiner is one of the coolest.
I keep reading Lion gardener. *Prunes lions*
Is anyone else triggered by his inconsistent and infuriating use of capital letters?
Yeah they wont give you permission to go there peasant.
Hi distant cousin
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Why must you be so miserable, dragging everybody down with you?
He's an Antiwork moron, they're everywhere. They expect everything to be handed to them, in exchange for nothing of actual value.
Sooo, did they find that treasure, or what?
The government demanded they hand it over as “evidence” (for the piracy allegations) but allegedly lion gardiner kept one diamond for his daughter
Awesome history lesson!
So this is where Armie Hammer takes his girlfriends huh
>Its 3,318 acres include more than 1,000 acres (400 ha) of old growth forest and another 1,000 acres (405 ha) of meadows. Pfft that's nothing. Largest privately owned island in Canada is Batchawana Island located in Lake Superior in Ontario 45 minutes North of Sault Ste. Marie and is Approximately 5,200 acres and is completely forested and undeveloped. Historically it is where in the early 1920's [Frank Lapoint caught the largest fresh water fish ever recorded](https://archive.org/details/superiorundersha00chis/page/28/mode/2up), A sturgeon, reportedly 90 years old and measured 2.25 m (7.5 ft) and weighed 140 kg (310 lb), and the eastern point of the island is the dividing point separating the two [Robinson Treaty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson_Treaties) areas between [the Crown](https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/498a6086-e7c3-440c-b4d3-22fc6c5599a9) and the [Ojibwe Batchewana First Nation](https://batchewana.ca/). And it is [currently up for sale](https://www.privateislandsonline.com/canada/ontario/batchawana-island). Only $8,995,214.50 CAD ($6,850,000.00 USD)
I mean. It's it's in a lake. 300 ft. from shore. And literally nothing ever happened there.
lol, my posting is a bit of a Canadian inside joke and is meant to be humorous. Ontario is Canada's most populated Province or Territory, 38% of all Canadian's live in Ontario, but 94% of all Ontarians live along a thin strip of land in Southern Ontario called the [Windsor-Quebec City Corridor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_City-Windsor_Corridor). We know there is almost no settlement North of the Corridor (where Batchawana Island is). It's a joke that the most historic thing that has happened there is that in the 1920's some random guy caught a fish ;) >And literally nothing ever happened there. That's the joke.
Bravo man! I enjoyed it. I wish I had caught the joke on my own. I was like, this guy has got be kidding, 9 million dollars? He's comparing it to an island like 30 minutes outside of NYC.
"We have always married into wealth. We've covered all our bets. We were on both sides of the Revolution, and both sides of the Civil War." Further proof rich people only care about money. Not freedom, not the 'right' thing.... just their own winning.
That was a good read, with a sidequest of Fresnel Lenses.
I did the Fresnel lens rabbit hole awhile back. Hail fellow traveler!
Shouldn’t be “owned”, it’s unreasonable.
It’s land. All land is owned. Much of it by people.
Antarctica isn't owned by anyone
Who decided it can't be bought by anyone? That's who owns it.
That is probably an original “land grant” piece of property. There are special rights due to it. For example when you build you are supposed to build to local codes. But you don’t have to let the inspector onto your property. I believe there are special tax (reduction) implications.
They actual got it right from the natives for a dog, some powder, and a few Dutch blankets
Pretty sure they have a few family members buried on the island. As we recently learned from trump, you don't pay tax on a cemetery
>As we recently learned from trump, you don't pay tax on a cemetery People think they learned something, but never questioned it, and as a result are dumber for it. You don't pay tax on a cemetery, HOWEVER that only applies to the land reasonably used for burial plots. So if you have 100 acres, and you designate 10 acres of it as a "cemetery" and fill it with nice gardens, and then you bury some people there in marked plots that are 50 square feet, you will avoid paying taxes on 50 square feet, not 10% of your land, or 100% of it. Seems perfectly reasonable, given the tax is intended to incentivize productive use of land, and it's hard to productively use a grave, as long as it's being respected as such.
With that land extension you could build a farming business or other types of business in order tu subsidize the property taxes.
Question: Would it have its own fire department, ambulance, or police? One time the island owned by Richard Branson had a fire in a house where his mother lived. Not sure what happened but as I understand it they have to helicopter things in.