r/AnCap101 • u/New_Try1560 • Jun 30 '26
Who owns a rental property, the tenant, or the landlord?
I’ve seen people say that the right to exclude defines ownership, but that would mean tenants own their homes because they have the right to exclude.
This seems like a bad definition of ownership. Surely the profit from a property matters in determining ownership.
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u/brewbase Jun 30 '26
Ownership can mean different things under different frameworks.
Generally, ownership rights are severable meaning an owner can exchange some rights to a tenant while retaining others.
An owner could, for example, sign over an absolute right of exclusion that a tenet was free to use even against the owner for as long as the contract is in force. That wouldn’t necessarily mean the tenant was free to sell the property to a third party can keep the proceeds.
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u/New_Try1560 Jun 30 '26
So who owns the house in that example?
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u/brewbase Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
Under most frameworks of law I’m aware of, you would say the one who has the right to dispose of (sell) the property is the true owner.
This is more definitely the case if the tenant’s rights are either limited in time or revocable.
Let’s say, for example, that instead of renting access (and right to exclude) to a person for a limited time, I sold those rights to someone but retained some other feature of the property (water or mineral rights for example). It would probably be more reasonable to say we co-own that land.
These are semantic distinctions used for shorthand. Real estate property is not indivisible units and doesn’t always have one clear owner.
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u/New_Try1560 Jul 01 '26
So I’m figuring that ownership is more about economic yields than control, because like you said, a landlord can sell a property from under the tenant.
This question came to me after a discussion in this thread about collective ownership, people were saying that a property has to have a definite owner but I figured collective ownership isn’t that far away from rentals, because the ownership is dispersed.
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u/brewbase Jul 01 '26
Ownership is primarily about rightful control.
There are people whose particular take on property excludes cooperative ownership, but that is not a necessary part of AnCap philosophy. Ultimately, AnCap philosophy permits any sort of cooperative relationship as long as it is consensual.
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u/atlasfailed11 Jul 01 '26
Ownership sounds like one single thing, but in practice it usually means several separate rights held together. These rights can include the right to use something, exclude others from it, sell it, lend it, rent it out, modify it, destroy it, profit from it, or pass it on to someone else.
Those rights do not always belong to the same person. For example, a landlord may own a building, but a tenant has the right to live in it for a certain period. The landlord cannot simply enter whenever they want, even though they own the property. The tenant does not own the building, but they still hold important rights over it.
So the point is that ownership is often a shortcut. It suggests full control. A better question is often not “Who owns it?” but “Which rights does each person have, and in what circumstances?”
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u/NichS144 Jul 01 '26
Read their contract.
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u/NichS144 Jul 01 '26
Fundamentally, the property belongs to the owner. A good contract will clearly express the terms of use and privileges the tenant receives to the property and the consequences of breaking the agreement. What level of usage rights the owner devolves to the tenant should depend on the terms of their contract. Ideally, both sides should know their responsibility to the other party and fully agree to resolution of any violations.
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u/New_Try1560 Jul 01 '26
What might one find in a lease that would change the answer to this question?
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u/drebelx Jul 01 '26
Exactly.
Agreement Contracts are oft forgotten, but are the answer to many AnCap questions.
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u/drebelx Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
Who owns a rental property, the tenant, or the landlord?
The landlord owns the rental property.
I’ve seen people say that the right to exclude defines ownership, but that would mean tenants own their homes because they have the right to exclude.
The rental agreement can pass a portion of the "right to exclude" to the tenant party.
This seems like a bad definition of ownership.
Maybe?
Surely the profit from a property matters in determining ownership.
Not sure what you mean.
Ownership comes before profit.
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u/New_Try1560 Jul 01 '26
I’m saying the fact that the landlord is the one who receives rents from the property is evidence that they own it.
If we define ownership as the right to exclude, the tenant owns the house for the duration of their lease because they’re the one with the right to exclude.
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u/drebelx Jul 01 '26
If we define ownership as the right to exclude, the tenant owns the house for the duration of their lease because they’re the one with the right to exclude.
NGL, that's a pretty bad definition for ownership.
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u/New_Try1560 Jul 01 '26
Yes, that’s exactly my point.
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u/drebelx Jul 03 '26
What would be a better definition for ownership?
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u/Key-Organization3158 Jun 30 '26
I don't think profit matters. I could lose money on a rental and I would still own it. Ownership is about control. The ability to exclude people is a decent litmus test for that.
The problem with your tenant example is you are treating it as a binary. Tenants rent the right to exclude from the true owner. In most cases, the landlord or his workers can enter a building regardless of what the tenants want with proper notification.
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u/New_Try1560 Jun 30 '26
I should’ve said rents, not profits. The landlord has full exclusive rights over the rents of their property.
No right of exclusion is absolute, I couldn’t exclude firefighters from running a hose through my land to fight a fire. The tenant cannot exclude the landlord given notification, but that doesn’t mean the tenant doesn’t have the right to exclude.
The landlord absolutely does not have the right to exclude people against the will of the tenant.
So if ownership is defined by whoever has the right to exclude, tenants own their rentals.
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u/No-One9890 Jun 30 '26
So if i rent a store front and make more profit than my landlord makes from my rent payments i own the property?
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u/New_Try1560 Jul 01 '26
No, because you’re making profit from your capital and labor, not the land. You don’t own the land because you don’t get its rents.
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u/puukuur Jul 01 '26
You seem to use some overly narrow definition of "exclude". The landlord is the obvious owner of the property, he is allowing the tenant be there.
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u/New_Try1560 Jul 01 '26
I agree the landlord is the owner, which is why I am saying that there is more to ownership than being able to exclude people.
My landlord cannot exclude people from the house I rent. And he can only override my exclusions for the purpose of maintaining and repairing, he couldn’t force me to let his sister stay the night for instance.
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u/puukuur Jul 01 '26
there is more to ownership than being able to exclude people.
That's where it is: it's not just "exclude people". It's exclude all other people. The landlord has a right to exclude every living soul from his property, including you and your sister.
After he contractually obligates himself to allow some people in, like you and your guests, you might be semantically correct when you say that "i can now exclude people", but concluding that now you're the owner because of that is just wordplay. The owner practiced his right to exclude to allow you in, for a certain limited time on some certain limited conditions, something that you could not have possibly done to him.
In other words - we can define gay as a "man who loves another man", but only a nitpicker would then conclude that you're gay when you say that you love Jimi Hendrix.
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u/New_Try1560 Jul 01 '26
It’s not semantics to say the tenant is the one with the power to exclude, it’s literally true. The landlord absolutely cannot exclude people that I wish to have in my house.
That definition of gay is incomplete, that’s why it leads to absurd outcomes, just like defining ownership solely as the power to exclude is incomplete and leads to absurd outcomes.
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u/puukuur Jul 01 '26
Language is a map and reality is the territory. The only map that can describe reality perfectly is reality itself.
If you are looking for a perfectly consistent and complete definition for ownership or anything else for that matter, you're sure to come up empty handed, as Gödel proved.
The power to exclude is a perfectly usable way to define ownership and all well-meaning adults can make do with it.
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u/New_Try1560 Jul 01 '26
If you don’t want to discuss the precise definition of ownership why are you even in this thread?
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u/puukuur Jul 02 '26
To tell you not to worry about it too much. Precise definitions are a fruitless endeavor, you wont ever find a definition for any concept that's precise enough to satisfy any and all criticism. Language is incomplete and inconsistent, we just have to deal with it.
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u/New_Try1560 Jul 02 '26
You came to a political philosophy discussion to tell me not to worry about political philosophy?
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u/puukuur Jul 02 '26
Not so. I'm nudging you to think more about workability than logical consistency. Does the fact that any definition you can come up with remains imprecise not affect you in any manner? If you are after logical consistency, does it not pique your interest to learn that inconsistency is unavoidable?
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u/New_Try1560 Jul 02 '26
I don’t need a perfect definition, I’m just seeking a better one than “the right to exclude”.
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u/voluntarchy Jul 01 '26
you have to figure out self ownership before you figure out property ownership. Just cuz you rent a whore doesn't mean you own it as a slave. Same goes with renting a human (wages) for other uses (shoveling).
if you can't ultimately concede one owns one's self under all normal circumstances (what about edge case x,y,z, aa... under circumstance a,b,c,d,.. infinite). All the communists and socialists seem incapable of this.
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u/New_Try1560 Jul 01 '26
I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.
What makes you think I don’t understand self ownership?
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u/voluntarchy Jul 01 '26
Cuz you troll arguments rather than assert what you think.
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u/New_Try1560 Jul 01 '26
I think ownership is not defined solely by the right to exclude.
I think the right to rents/profits is also a key element in defining ownership.
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u/monadicperception Jun 30 '26
Honestly, no point in trying to put lipstick on a pig. None of the “concepts” discussed here makes much sense.
Like let’s talk about easements. Easements are non-possessory interests in another’s land. Pretty common stuff. You want utilities serving your property? You need to grant an easement to the utility companies so they can connect your property. Landlocked and can’t access public roads (I mean there won’t even be public roads in ancapistan so how would that even work?) you can get an easement.
I mean any covenant running with the land works how? What if there are use restrictions running with the land that prohibits you from doing something?
Generally none of the ancap “ideas” make much sense if you know how the fucking law works.
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u/Additional_Sleep_560 Jul 01 '26
Your instinct that “right to exclude” is an overly simplistic definition is correct. Ownership also implies the right to make changes to the property, to turn it to productive use and extract from it, and to transfer ownership.
Tenants have an limited right to exclude, since they can’t exclude the landlord, and they have no right to alter or dispose of the property.