Interesting comment from someone on Legal Insurrection:
CommoChief in reply to Dathurtz. | August 24, 2023 at 8:28 am
It’s an interesting point on land ownership. While there is fee simple ownership (fee hold) just like we have in the continental US there is also a large amount of leasehold property. There are (were?) multiple properties with condominium complex sitting on them which are leasehold.
Prior to his passing last year my Brother lived in Lahaina for over 25 years working as a real estate agent and commercial property manager. He had pointed out to me that several of the leasehold were coming to the end of their term. The families that actually own the land these condominiums sit on had seen their grandparents/great grandparents grant the lease hold for peanuts many decades ago.
These condo complexes are worth tens of $ millions but don’t own the land they are built on and the families that own it, who had been rebuffed at every request to renegotiate the leasehold terms, were in essence going to build the ‘back payments’ they felt due into any new lease hold agreement. The condo complexes have little choice but to pay; the alternative is to either walk away or tear down the complex and return the property to the
condition prior to the leasehold being granted.
I have no idea how the fires and the property loss would impact insurance payments under those circumstances; some of the lease holds expire next year and more to follow within five years.