Exclusive: Assets of thousands of people in north-west England used to upgrade king’s property empire via archaic custom
  • AutoTL;DRBEnglish
    12•1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    The king is profiting from the deaths of thousands of people in the north-west of England whose assets are secretly being used to upgrade a commercial property empire managed by his hereditary estate, the Guardian can reveal.

    The Duchy of Lancaster, a controversial land and property estate that generates huge profits for King Charles III, has collected tens of millions of pounds in recent years under an antiquated system that dates back to feudal times.

    The Guardian identified dozens of people whose money has been transferred to the king’s hereditary estate after they died in the north-west in places such as Preston, Manchester, Burnley, Blackburn, Liverpool, Ulverston and Oldham.

    A Duchy of Lancaster spokesperson indicated that, following his mother’s death, the king endorsed the continuation of a policy of using bona vacantia money on “the restoration and repair of qualifying buildings in order to protect and preserve them for future generations”.

    However, under a custom that has its roots in the medieval period, two hereditary estates, or duchies, belonging to the royal family can collect bona vacantia from people who die in two regions in England.

    “The king reaffirmed that money from bona vacantia should not benefit the privy purse, but should be used primarily to support local communities, protect the sustainability and biodiversity of the land and preserve public and historic properties across the Duchy of Lancaster estates,” the spokesperson said.

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    • FlaxEnglish
      4•1 year ago

      So it’s basically a tax being used to help preserve buildings. Hardly “profit” that the guardian pushes with their headline

      • tryptaminev 🇵🇸 🇺🇦 🇪🇺English
        11•1 year ago

        Not really. It means any inheritage that does not have a heir to claim it, goes to the crown. Not the state but the crown. And while they claim to use it to presvere cultural sites, they use it on commercial estates that give profit returns to the crown.

        Imagine your inheritage being used to pay the upkeep for a privately owned shopping mall, instead of going to the public park next to it.