Gotcha.
So if I converted my standalone garage into a MiL suite, would I have to turn it over?
No, you don’t have to turn over anything, why do you keep coming up with that strawman?
But if someone else would come and ask if they can use it since evidently you don’t, there is not much you could do about it other that asking them to voluntarily reimburse you for your costs ; and not a rent that over time pays your costs back many times over. The reason why the latter is possible in our society, is because the state (via the police) will violently evict people from houses they use but aren’t their private property. Hence for private property to exist there needs to be violent enforcement and only the state makes it legal to do so.
It’s an edge case scenario, but I wouldn’t call it a strawman.
What about in the case where my father dies. What happens to his house? Do I have to sell it? What if no one wants to buy it right away? What is the defining difference between personal property and private property? Because right now, it just seems like the difference is when you, or some arbitrary body of consensus, decides that someone else owns enough stuff.
The strawman is that you assume someone would go around and actively take things away from you. This wouldn’t be the case. Rather if other people have an urgent need for it and you don’t, then, and only then would this situation happen.
But distinction is clear: regular usage. Nothing arbitrary about that at all.
If you don’t plan to use the house of your father, someone else should start using it, especially if there is a housing shortage. Common politeness would of course mandate to wait for you to finish grieving the death of your father and allow you to remove any items of purely sentimental value from the house first.
Simple as that. Why would you, who likely spend no effort at all in building or maintaining the house of your father have any special rights?
