Residents of Emmer-Compascuum are completely fed up with it. For over a hundred years, some of them have had to pay a 20th penny annually to the Kröner family when they sell a home on a plot owned by this family. That amounts to 5 percent of the sales price.
A situation that is unique in Drenthe and hardly occurs in the Netherlands. Something that once started as a kind of tax and is now a cash cow for a wealthy family.
About twenty years ago the village tried to get rid of the 20th penny. Kor Steenbergen, urban planner of the municipality of Emmen, visited Ilonka Kröner together with Gerard Gustin. “We had millions with us to buy it off. But she is a shark, a money-grabber. She absolutely did not want to lose it. It was like: ‘We own these rights and are not going to do anything. Boys, just fuck off.’ .”
Centuries ago, a 20th or 10th penny was very normal in the Netherlands. The Duke of Alva, among others, introduced this tax measure in the 16th century. In this way, the Netherlands, which fell under Spanish rule, should be able to save itself financially. This was a 10 percent tax on food and clothing, among other things. He also introduced a 20th penny on the sale of houses. This arrangement was eventually bought off.
But it was not only Alva who introduced this scheme, the 20th penny was also very common in Groningen’s peat colonies, says provincial historian Michiel Gerding. “These peat areas were owned by the city of Groningen. They had a canal dug to drain the peat, the Stadskanaal. You had to pay for its use. But there were also roads and paths along the canal, the so-called voorfen. These had to be maintained. For this purpose, the 20th penny was introduced on the peat plots.”
This meant that owners had to pay an amount annually. If they also sold a house on the plot, they had to pay a 20th penny to the owner of the land who used it for maintenance.
This Groningen system is also applied in Emmer-Compascuum and later also in Emmer-Erfscheidenveen, when peat was extracted here in the second half of the 19th century. The Veenschap was founded for this purpose in Emmer-Compacuum in 1874. In Emmer-Erfscheidenveen, farmers set up a partnership around the same time to peat the area.
With the disappearance of peat extraction in Emmer-Erfscheidenveen, the rights are transferred to the water board. In Emmer-Compascuum, according to Steenbergen, Mr Kröner bought the rights around 1912. “He was a member of the board of the Veenschap and it wanted to sell the plots. If you lived on it, you could buy the plot yourself. But most plots were undeveloped. Every year Kröner held a meeting for his tenants at Café Abeln. They had to pay a guilder. According to stories, he kept track of this on the back of a cigar box.”
“It actually bothered Kröner,” says Steenbergen. “It felt to him as if he had been saddled with it. But in the end it turned out to be golden business to be.”