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999 year lease

  • 05-02-2010 9:05pm
    #1
    enry
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 235 ✭✭


    Hi all,

    Just wondering if there is anything preventing a leasehold estate being created for a period longer then 999 years and if so what are these restrictions.

    Any help would be much appreciated


Comments

  • #2
    Victor
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 78,580 ✭✭✭✭Victor


    I take it that its a fee farm lease.

    I don't think there is a problem for longer periods, but any I've seen recently have been for 100-250 years. There may be issues if it is residential property, especially if there is a ground rent involved.

    In reality, you are going to be dead anyway whether its 250, 999 or 1001 years. What it does do is give the vendor / lease holder some final say in what the property is used for. While this may have had merit in the 19th century townships or in modern apartment buildings, I wonder if the Oireachtas will start to frown on such arrangements.


  • #3
    rubensni
    Closed Accounts Posts: 350 ✭✭rubensni


    Noone really knows why 999 year leases became popular over 1,000 year ones, but one theory goes that the thousand year lease would be a sale in the days before the enlightenment.

    Today a lease can be as long as you like. For example Guinness' in St James' Gate Dublin have a 9000 year lease.


  • #4
    Reloc8
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,857 ✭✭✭Reloc8


    I'm dimly recalling something about the longest valid term for a lease of real property being 999 years. Not sure if that remains the case but that is why that period is commonly used in long term residential (and other) leases.


  • #5
    Maximilian
    Legal Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 5,400 Mod ✭✭✭✭Maximilian


    999 year leases may have had a reasoning behind them but it's just custom at this stage. 10,000 year leases exist but are rare. There's no limit in theory.

    You often come across old 99 year leases from around the turn of the 18th century and in those cases the reason was that at the time certain rights kicked in after 100 years.


  • #6
    Victor
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 78,580 ✭✭✭✭Victor


    Maximilian wrote: »
    10,000 year leases exist but are rare.
    I think it was the Salvation Army were selling a property in Belfast and they added a covenant to the sale that the premises wasn't to be used for the sale of alcohol for the next 10,000 years. :)


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  • #7
    Maximilian
    Legal Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 5,400 Mod ✭✭✭✭Maximilian


    Victor wrote: »
    I think it was the Salvation Army were selling a property in Belfast and they added a covenant to the sale that the premises wasn't to be used for the sale of alcohol for the next 10,000 years. :)

    Hehe. They should buy the freehold, merge the lease and open a pub. Damn killjoys.


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