Foreign land ownership

The article on land leasing and ownership by foreign residents in Bali (Sunday, Sept. 3, 1995) was interesting because it mirrored similar issues elsewhere. What is needed is a legal provision for long leases: leases of 40, 50 or even 99 years. This then guarantees that the family of original owners retain the title of ownership.

For many decades in Ireland, foreigners could buy small amounts of land on a sliding scale without reference to any government body beyond the legal necessity of registering change of ownership. A German, for instance, could buy five acres of excellent land or by degrees -- 30 acres of rock, bog and heather. For larger pieces of land, a body called the Land Commission considered the local implications of the sale and eventually either approved or forbade the purchase (or cobbled together an acceptable compromise).

The system worked well, if slowly, until Irish membership of the EU rendered it an anachronism. The percentage of Irish land owned by foreigners is a tiny, tiny fraction of the nation's area, even today when there are no legal impediments to foreign ownership of land.

WILLIAM CORR

Osaka, Japan