How does Fairhold work?

A 3D illustration showing a residential property divided into 3 parts. The house itself, labelled 'Building', the land below it, labelled 'Affordable land' and below that another outline of the land below it representing the underlying Freehold, labelled 'Community Land Trust'

The key to keeping a home affordable is not the house itself, but the land underneath it. Fairhold works by unbundling the two.

The plot can either be rented for a low monthly community ground rent, or purchased for an up-front cost. It has an asset-lock, so you can't sell it for more than you bought it for¹.

The building is treated as a durable. So, a house that needs a lot of work will be cheaper to buy, and if you then do work to improve it, that investment will be reflected in its value when you sell. In many ways this is how most of us expect property to work already – but it often doesn't.

All the while the original underlying freehold is held in trust by the community, so the home stays affordable forever.

Fairhold will be an open source, modular, template leasehold² agreement that any community landowner can use – like Creative Commons licences, but for homes.
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We will be publishing a full White Paper that explores every aspect of the Fairhold model in detail, and we welcome input and feedback.
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1 Adjusted for inflation (CPI)

2 Subject to the law in that jurisdiction.