It’s a way flat are owned in some parts of the UK - the freeholder owns the building/land, but the individual flats are sold on under long leases (aka leaseholders) - they don’t actually own the building but they own legal rights to inhabit part of it.
But sometimes there isn’t a single freeholder and the leaseholders will own a share of the freehold, so they own both the legal rights and a share of the building. Those leases are time limited and have to be renewed. Usually sold on 99 year terms, can be sold on but obviously May have declined in value.
In THEORY it should make maintenance of the building easier as there’s a single (and final) point of responsibility.
But in practice it doesn’t often do that, and there are lots of calls for reform of the system to replace it with a more communal form of ownership.
But that’s unlikely to happen because a lot of very rich families derive a lot of their wealth from owning freeholder and selling leadeholds, eg the Duke of Westminster, our richest individual, owns huge chunks of central london. Basically preserves wealth across generations of families.
Sorry I’m drunk
