In the village of Balestrand, a historic hotel was running at a loss. Realizing that it would never return a profit to the owner, he decided to close it down for good.
The owner expected, rather naively, that the municipality would see the hotel as worthless as it actually was and therefore relieve him of the property tax.
However, the officials at the town hall saw things differently. The hotel was still worth a small fortune, and the owner would have to pay up, despite having closed the place down.
The owner tried then to sell the hotel, but there was no offers. He tried to give it away, but there was still no offers.
Seeing that the hotel was as worthless as he had claimed, he asked permission to tear it down. But that option was denied to him.
He asked if he could have his name removed from the records, but that was of course impossible. The hotel had to have an owner. It could not be returned to nature, as it were. Being a historic hotel, it would require maintenance as well. People from the town hall would routinely inspect the hotel and demand repairs to be done.
For the owner to deny any of this, would result in a stiff fine.
For all practical purposes, the owner of the hotel was the municipality's serf. He was bound to his hotel, and could not escape.
I found the story ominous. It was strangely reminiscent of the introduction of serfdom by the Romans back in Roman times.
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