I am watching the cutting edge “Duchess of Duke Street,” about a 1900 apprentice chef rising up through the business ranks, from mistress of the Prince of Wales to owner of a fancy hotel.
Not to reveal spoilers, but around 1902 the prince grants her a long lease on a London townhouse (you call them rowhouses) at the beginning of their affair, which she later sells to use as capital to buy the lease on the remaining 60 years left on a 90 year lease of a hotel. Then when she’s in dire straits a gentleman friend gives her 1,500 pounds to buy the remaining time on this lease from her. He’ll have his own suite at the hotel and the heroine can otherwise keep running the place.
So, if you wanted to lease a house in London did you give all the money for the years of the lease up front, and then there’s no more monthly/quarterly/yearly rent due? I guess you took over the building’s upkeep and repairs, but who paid the property taxes? When did this system shift, or is it still in place?
It’s all very foreign to an average American like me. Lease agreements also figure in stories like “Howard’s End” and it’s always kind of murky from this end.