99-year lease

Last updated January 04, 2025

A 99-year lease is, under historic common law,^{[ where? ]} the longest possible term of a lease of real property. It is no longer the law in most common law jurisdictions today, yet 99-year leases continue to be common as a matter of business practice and conventional wisdom.

The law

Under the traditional common law doctrine, the 99-year term was not seriously literal, but merely an arbitrary time span beyond the life expectancy of any possible lessee (user) or lessor (owner).^[1]^[2]

William Blackstone (1723–1781, of Commentaries on the Laws of England fame) states that a lease was formerly limited to 40 years, although much longer leases (for 300 years, or 1000 years) were in use by the time of Edward III.^[3] The 40-year limit was based on the text The Mirror of Justices (book 2, chapter 27).

In the law of several US states, a 99-year lease will always be the longest possible contract for realty by statute, but many states have enacted shorter terms and some allow infinite terms.^{[ citation needed ]}

Due to the influence of the ideas of Henry George at the time the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) was established in the early 20th century, all land in the ACT is held under 99-year leases, the first of which expired in 2023.^[4]

The 99-year lease concept has been more common under the civil law regimes when it comes to concessions of territory: most concessions last for 99 years.^{[ citation needed ]}

Examples

Destroyers-for-bases deal – leased old U.S. Navy destroyers to the United Kingdom in exchange for the right to construct U.S. Armed Forces bases in the British Empire, including Newfoundland, the British West Indies, and British Guiana.

Americas

Boston Museum of Science – leased by the Boston municipal government to the Metropolitan District Commission
Castaway Cay – leased to Disney by the Bahamian government in 1996
Moffat Tunnel – leased to Union Pacific Railroad by the state of Colorado under a 99-year lease until 2025.^[5] A lease extension of 25 years was agreed to after the initial 99 years expired.^[6]^[7]
Ontario Highway 407 Express Toll Route – leased to private company by the Ontario provincial government under Premier Mike Harris for C$3.1 billion.
Panama Canal – Panama leased the canal and the surrounding zone to the United States during the 20th century. Returned to full Panamanian control by 1999 under the 1977 Torrijos–Carter Treaties.
Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) Memorial Stadium – The United States House of Representatives successfully passed a bill on 28 February 2024 to grant Washington, D.C. control of the RFK Stadium property. The bill went to the United States Senate, where it unanimously passed on 21 December 2024. This bill will allow the Washington, D.C. government to lease the stadium through December 2123.^[8]

Asia

British Hong Kong – The Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory resulted in the 99-year lease of the New Territories from the Qing Empire to the British Empire in 1898. Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula had already been ceded to the British in perpetuity after the Opium Wars. Transferred to full control of the People's Republic of China in the 1997 Hong Kong handover.
Magampura Mahinda Rajapaksa Port – Sri Lanka to China
Kouang-Tchéou-Wan
Public housing in Singapore – all HDB flats are sold with 99-year leases. Upon expiry of the lease, control reverts to the government of Singapore.

Africa

Suakin Island – On 17 January 2018, as part of a rapprochement with Sudan, Turkey was granted a 99-year lease over Suakin Island. Turkey plans to restore the ruined Ottoman port city on the island.
Diego Garcia – The United Kingdom announced the handover of the entirety of the British Indian Ocean Territory, including the island of Diego Garcia, to Mauritius in exchange for a 99-year lease on Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia in October 2024.^[9]

Related Research Articles

Hong Kong Island is an island in the southern part of Hong Kong. The island, known originally and on road signs simply as "Hong Kong", had a population of 1,289,500 and a population density of 16,390 per square kilometre (42,400/sq mi), as of 2023. It is the second largest island in Hong Kong, with the largest being Lantau Island. Hong Kong Island forms one of the three areas of Hong Kong, with the other two being Kowloon and the New Territories.

Kowloon is an urban area in Hong Kong comprising the Kowloon Peninsula and New Kowloon. It has a population of 2,019,533 and a population density of 43,033/km² (111,450/sq mi) in 2006. It is one of the three areas of Hong Kong, along with Hong Kong Island and the New Territories. It is the smallest, second most populous and most densely populated of the divisions.

The Sino-British Joint Declaration was a treaty between the governments of the United Kingdom and People's Republic of China signed in 1984 setting the conditions in which Hong Kong was transferred to Chinese control and for the governance of the territory after 1 July 1997.

The New Territories is one of the three areas of Hong Kong, alongside Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula. It makes up 86.2% of Hong Kong's territory, and contains around half of the population of Hong Kong. Historically, it is the region described in the Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory. According to that treaty, the territories comprise the mainland area north of Boundary Street on the Kowloon Peninsula and south of the Sham Chun River, as well as over 200 outlying islands, including Lantau Island, Lamma Island, Cheung Chau, and Peng Chau in the territory of Hong Kong.

The Convention of Peking or First Convention of Peking is an agreement comprising three distinct unequal treaties concluded between the Qing dynasty of China and Great Britain, France, and the Russian Empire in 1860.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Hong Kong (1800s–1930s)</span>

Hong Kong (1800s–1930s) oversaw the founding of the new crown colony of Hong Kong under the British Empire. After the First Opium War, the territory was ceded by the Qing Empire to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland through Treaty of Nanjing (1842) and Convention of Peking (1860) in perpetuity. Together with additional land that was leased to the British under the Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory (1898), Hong Kong became one of the first parts of East Asia to undergo industrialisation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New Kowloon</span> Area in Hong Kong

New Kowloon is an area in Hong Kong, bounded to the south by Boundary Street, and to the north by the ranges of the Eagle's Nest, Beacon Hill, Lion Rock, Tate's Cairn and Kowloon Peak. It covers the present-day Kwun Tong District and Wong Tai Sin District, and northern parts of the Sham Shui Po District and Kowloon City District.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Hong Kong</span>

The region of Hong Kong has been inhabited since the Old Stone Age, later becoming part of the Chinese Empire with its loose incorporation into the Qin dynasty. Starting out as a farming fishing village and salt production site, it became an important free port and eventually a major international financial center.

British National (Overseas), abbreviated as BN(O), is a class of British nationality associated with the former colony of Hong Kong. The status was acquired through voluntary registration by individuals with a connection to the territory who had been British Dependent Territories citizens (BDTCs) before the handover to China in 1997. Registration for BN(O) status was limited to the 10-year period preceding the transfer as a transitional arrangement for former BDTCs; current residents cannot newly acquire this nationality.

The handover of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to the People's Republic of China was at midnight on 1 July 1997. This event ended 156 years of British rule in the former colony, which began in 1841.

In international relations, a concession is a "synallagmatic act by which a State transfers the exercise of rights or functions proper to itself to a foreign private test which, in turn, participates in the performance of public functions and thus gains a privileged position vis-a-vis other private law subjects within the jurisdiction of the State concerned." International concessions are not defined in international law and do not generally fall under it. Rather, they are governed by the municipal law of the conceding state. There may, however, be a law of succession for such concessions, whereby the concession is continued even when the conceding state ceases to exist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory</span> 1898 treaty between China and the United Kingdom

The Convention between the United Kingdom and China, Respecting an Extension of Hong Kong Territory, commonly known as the Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory or the Second Convention of Peking, was a lease and unequal treaty signed between Qing China and the United Kingdom in Peking on 9 June 1898, leasing to the United Kingdom for 99 years, at no charge, the New Territories and northern Kowloon, including 235 islands.

Britons never made up more than a small portion of the population in Hong Kong, despite Hong Kong having been under British rule for more than 150 years. However, they did leave their mark on Hong Kong's institutions, culture and architecture. The British population in Hong Kong today consists mainly of career expatriates working in banking, education, real estate, law and consultancy, as well as many British-born ethnic Chinese, former Chinese émigrés to the UK and Hong Kongers who successfully applied for full British citizenship before the transfer of sovereignty in 1997.

Establishment Day, formally the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Establishment Day, is celebrated annually on 1 July in Hong Kong, China since 1997. The holiday celebrates the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to the People's Republic of China and the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. The similarly-named holiday in Macau occurs on 20 December, the day of its handover from Portugal.

The Moffat Tunnel is a railroad and water tunnel that cuts through the Continental Divide in north-central Colorado. Named after Colorado railroad pioneer David Moffat, the tunnel's first official railroad traffic passed through in February 1928.

A reception statute is a statutory law adopted as a former British colony becomes independent by which the new nation adopts, or receives, the English common law before its independence to the extent not explicitly rejected by the legislative body or constitution of the new nation. Reception statutes generally consider the English common law dating prior to independence, as well as the precedents originating from it, as the default law because of the importance of using an extensive and predictable body of law to govern the conduct of citizens and businesses in a new state.

Hong Kong was a British crown colony and later a dependent territory of the United Kingdom from 1841 to 1997, with a period of Japanese occupation from 1941 to 1945 during World War II. The colonial period began with the British occupation of Hong Kong Island under the Convention of Chuenpi in 1841 of the Victorian era.

Hong Kong–United Kingdom relations are the international relations between the post-colonial Hong Kong and the United Kingdom. Hong Kong was a British colony from 1841 to 1941 and again from 1945 to 1997 when sovereignty was handed over to China. UK policy towards Hong Kong is underpinned by its substantial commercial interests, and fulfilling obligation as the other signatory of Sino–British Joint Declaration on the future of Hong Kong, in addition to support Hong Kong's mini-constitution, the Basic Law, and in accordance with China's policy of observing "one country, two systems". Hong Kong is also home to roughly 2.9 million British National (Overseas)s, 350,000 of which hold an active British passport, giving it one of the largest populations of British passport holders in the world behind only the Anglosphere Commonwealth realms and the United States.

Hong Kong–mainland China relations refer to the relationship between Mainland China and Hong Kong. According to the 1997 Sino-British Joint Declaration, the United Kingdom handed control of Hong Kong over to the People's Republic of China, making it a special administrative region. In principle, Hong Kong became an autonomous administrative division based on the Hong Kong Basic Law.

The Hong Kong Question is the question regarding the political status of the city of Hong Kong in several points in history.

References

↑ Mortgage News Daily web site article on a 99-year lease Archived 3 March 2008 at the Wayback Machine . Accessed 20 February 2008.
↑ Cecil Adams, Why are leases made for 99-year terms?, 22 July 1977, found at The Straight Dope article on 99-year lease. Accessed 20 February 2008.
↑ William Blackstone (1753), Commentaries on the Laws of England , Book 2, Chapter IX "Of estates less than freehold"
↑ Taylor, Gordon (4 July 2016). "Can people own land in the ACT?". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 24 July 2018.
↑ Williams, David O. (28 July 2023). "Oil-train opponents look to railroad's expiring Moffat Tunnel lease for bargaining power". Colorado Newsline. Retrieved 26 September 2023.
↑ Toomer, Lindsey (26 December 2024). "Colorado agrees to 25-year Moffat Tunnel lease to access Union Pacific tracks for passenger rail". Colorado Newsline. Retrieved 4 January 2025.
↑ "Colorado, Union Pacific reach deal on new Moffat Tunnel agreement". Trains . 23 December 2024. Retrieved 4 January 2025.
↑ "Late Senate vote approves RFK site plan as Commanders pursue stadium". ABC News. Retrieved 21 December 2024.
↑ "UK hands sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius". www.bbc.com. Retrieved 4 October 2024.

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[1] Mortgage News Daily web site article on a 99-year lease Archived 3 March 2008 at the Wayback Machine . Accessed 20 February 2008.

[2] Cecil Adams, Why are leases made for 99-year terms?, 22 July 1977, found at The Straight Dope article on 99-year lease. Accessed 20 February 2008.

[3] William Blackstone (1753), Commentaries on the Laws of England , Book 2, Chapter IX "Of estates less than freehold"

[4] Taylor, Gordon (4 July 2016). "Can people own land in the ACT?". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 24 July 2018.

[5] Williams, David O. (28 July 2023). "Oil-train opponents look to railroad's expiring Moffat Tunnel lease for bargaining power". Colorado Newsline. Retrieved 26 September 2023.

[6] Toomer, Lindsey (26 December 2024). "Colorado agrees to 25-year Moffat Tunnel lease to access Union Pacific tracks for passenger rail". Colorado Newsline. Retrieved 4 January 2025.

[7] "Colorado, Union Pacific reach deal on new Moffat Tunnel agreement". Trains . 23 December 2024. Retrieved 4 January 2025.

[8] "Late Senate vote approves RFK site plan as Commanders pursue stadium". ABC News. Retrieved 21 December 2024.

[9] "UK hands sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius". www.bbc.com. Retrieved 4 October 2024.

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