land-sharking

Noun

land-sharking (uncountable)

1. The speculative purchase of large amounts of land for the sole purpose of selling it at a profit.
   • The main object in making Colonists pay for their land, instead of the Government giving it to them, is to prevent what is called the land-sharking system.1865, George Lyttelton Baron Lyttelton, Ephemera, page 133
   • Land-sharking was not, however, limited to persons whose sole object in life was money-making, as several missionaries, Mr. Wentworth, an eminent Sydney lawyer, and the British Resident, were to be found among them.1866, Arthur Saunders Thomson, The Story of New Zealand: Past and Present--Savage and Civilized
2. Any of various illegal or unethical practices around the sale or lease of land, such as criminally forcing sales, fraudulently selling land, charging exorbitant rents, etc.
   • "The landlords there" (Ireland), says Spenser, "most shamefully rack their rents;" so that our present generateion of rack-renters, land-jobbing companies, as well as land-sharking individuals, have a long prescription for their legalized system of plunder.1870, Patrick Lavelle, The Irish Landlord Since the Revolution, page 306
   • Due to the real estate bubble of the 1980s, for example, the Yakuza entered into the business of land-sharking. The goal of this type of extortion was to force landowners or lease holders to sell or give up their lease, respectively, so as to allow larger real estate developments on that land.2016, Corinna Elsenbroich, David Anzola, Nigel Gilbert, Social Dimensions of Organised Crime, page 14