Absentee landlord is an economic term for a person who owns and rents out a profit-earning property, but does not live within the property's local economic region. This practice is problematic for that region because absentee landlords drain local wealth into their home country, particularly that of rural areas and the Third World. The term "absentee ownership" was popularised by economist Thorstein Veblen's book of the same name, Absentee ownership.
When used in a local context, the term refers to a landlord of a house or other real estate, who leases the property to tenants, but fails to ensure that proper maintenance is done on it. This in turn leads to what may appear to be abandoned buildings, causing significantly-lowered property values and urban blight.
Tax policy seems, overall, to favour absentee ownership. However, some jurisdictions seek to extract money from absentee owners by taxing land. Absentee ownership has sometimes put the absentee owners at risk of loss. Research suggests that net of other factors, foreign ownership has a negligible impact on the environmental performance of chemical plants. Research also indicates that in Mongolia, there is little indication that high rates of absentee ownership have detrimental ecological or social effects.
Read more about Absentee Landlord: Absentee Landlords in Ireland, Absentee Landlords in Prince Edward Island, Absentee Landlords in Palestine Before 1948
Famous quotes containing the word landlord:
“Denouement to denouement, he took a personal pride in the
certain, certain way he lived his own, private life,
but nevertheless, they shut off his gas; nevertheless,
the bank foreclosed; nevertheless, the landlord called;
nevertheless, the radio broke,
And twelve o’clock arrived just once too often,”
—Kenneth Fearing (1902–1961)