Background
According to the text of the syllabus preceding the Court's opinion:
- A state bank, which was a member of the Federal Reserve System, upon realizing that it was not feasible, because of various state and federal regulations, for it to finance by conventional mortgage and other financing a building under construction for its headquarters and principal banking facility, entered into sale-and-leaseback agreements by which petitioner took title to the building and leased it back to the bank for long-term use, petitioner obtaining both a construction loan and permanent mortgage financing. The bank is obligated to pay rent equal to the principal and interest payments on petitioner's mortgage and has an option to repurchase the building at various times at prices equal to the then unpaid balance of petitioner's mortgage and initial $500,000 investment. On its federal income tax return for the year in which the building was completed and the bank took possession, petitioner accrued rent from the bank and claimed as deductions depreciation on the building, interest on its construction loan and mortgage, and other expenses related to the sale-and-leaseback transaction.
The bank was Worthen Bank in Little Rock and the Frank Lyon Corporation engaged in the distribution of home furnishings, primarily Whirlpool and RCA electrical products. The bank bought the land and started construction of the subject building before it found a buyer. The Frank Lyon Company won the bidding to buy the building from the bank by providing $500,000 of the $7.6 million purchase price. The rest of the money came from New York Life. The mortgage loan's payments to the lender and the rent payments were engineered to be exactly equal. The title owner, Frank Lyon, never actually received the rent payments from the Worthen Bank because the three party deal specifically required that Worthen pay New York Life directly. The lease was triple net (i.e. any increase in expenses are paid not by the owner, but by the tenant).
Another fact which leads a reasonable man to conclude that Worthen Bank was the real party in a two party deal and that the Frank Lyon company was a mere agent, is that the tenant, Worthen Bank, had a 25-year lease with options to either buy the building or extend the lease for 65 years when it could still buy the building. The option's strike price was set so that Frank Lyon would be repaid exactly its $500,000 plus 6% interest.
Economic owners of an asset would be expected to bear the benefits and burdens of any change in market value of the thing owned. In this case, Worthen Bank, the tenant, bore the benefits and the burdens, rather than the title owner. The transaction was a classic sale leaseback.
This aims to be a complete list of the articles on real estate.
A landlord is the owner of a house, apartment, condominium, land or real estate which is rented or leased to an individual or business, who is called a tenant. When a juristic person is in this position, the term landlord is used. Other terms include lessor and owner. The term landlady may be used for women owners, and lessor may be used regardless of gender. The manager of a UK pub, strictly speaking a licensed victualler, is referred to as the landlord.
A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the lessee (user) to pay the lessor (owner) for use of an asset. Property, buildings and vehicles are common assets that are leased. Industrial or business equipment is also leased.
A Lease-Purchase Contract, also known as a Lease Purchase Agreement, is the heart of rent-to-own properties. It combines elements of a traditional rental agreement with an exclusive right of first refusal option for later purchase on the home. It is a shortened name for Lease with Option to Purchase Contract.
Real estate economics is the application of economic techniques to real estate markets. It tries to describe, explain, and predict patterns of prices, supply, and demand. The closely related field of housing economics is narrower in scope, concentrating on residential real estate markets, while the research of real estate trends focuses on the business and structural changes affecting the industry. Both draw on partial equilibrium analysis, urban economics, spatial economics, basic and extensive research, surveys, and finance.
Cross-border leasing is a leasing arrangement where lessor and lessee are situated in different countries. This presents significant additional issues related to tax avoidance and tax shelters.
Closed-end leasing is a contract-based system governed by law in the U.S. and Canada. It allows a person the use of property for a fixed term, and the right to buy that property for the agreed residual value when the term expires.
Rent-to-own, also known as rental-purchase, is a type of legally documented transaction under which tangible property, such as furniture, consumer electronics, motor vehicles, home appliances, real property, and engagement rings, is leased in exchange for a weekly or monthly payment, with the option to purchase at some point during the agreement.
Accounting for leases in the United States is regulated by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) by the Financial Accounting Standards Number 13, now known as Accounting Standards Codification Topic 840. These standards were effective as of January 1, 1977. The FASB completed in February 2016 a revision of the lease accounting standard, referred to as ASC 842.
A lease option is a type of contract used in both residential and commercial real estate. In a lease-option, a property owner and tenant agree that, at the end of a specified rental period for a given property, the renter has the option of purchasing the property.
Real estate investing involves the purchase, ownership, management, rental and/or sale of real estate for profit. Improvement of realty property as part of a real estate investment strategy is generally considered to be a sub-specialty of real estate investing called real estate development. Real estate is an asset form with limited liquidity relative to other investments, it is also capital intensive and is highly cash flow dependent. If these factors are not well understood and managed by the investor, real estate becomes a risky investment. The primary cause of investment failure for real estate is that the investor goes into negative cash flow for a period of time that is not sustainable, often forcing them to resell the property at a loss or go into insolvency. A similar practice known as flipping is another reason for failure as the nature of the investment is often associated with short term profit with less effort.
Leaseback, short for "sale-and-leaseback", is a financial transaction in which one sells an asset and leases it back for the long term; therefore, one continues to be able to use the asset but no longer owns it. The transaction is generally done for fixed assets, notably real estate, as well as for durable and capital goods such as airplanes and trains. The concept can also be applied by national governments to territorial assets; prior to the Falklands War, the government of the United Kingdom proposed a leaseback arrangement whereby the Falklands Islands would be transferred to Argentina, with a 99-year leaseback period, and a similar arrangement, also for 99 years, had been in place prior to the handover of Hong Kong to mainland China. Leaseback arrangements are usually employed because they confer financing, accounting or taxation benefits.
Aircraft finance refers to financing for the purchase and operation of aircraft. Complex aircraft finance shares many characteristics with maritime finance, and to a lesser extent with project finance.
In the field of commercial real estate, especially in the United States, a net lease requires the tenant to pay, in addition to rent, some or all of the property expenses that normally would be paid by the property owner. These include expenses such as property taxes, insurance, maintenance, repair, and operations, utilities, and other items. These expenses are often categorized into the "three nets": property taxes, insurance, and maintenance. In US parlance, a lease where all three of these expenses are paid by the tenant is known as a triple net lease, NNN Lease, or triple-N for short and sometimes written NNN.
Crane v. Commissioner, 331 U.S. 1 (1947), was a case heard before the United States Supreme Court concerning the value, for tax purposes, of inherited property with a nonrecourse mortgage encumbering it. According to Boris I. Bittker, Crane "laid the foundation stone of most tax shelters."
Helvering v. Bruun, 309 U.S. 461 (1940), was an income tax case before the Supreme Court of the United States. It is notable for the following holding:
A security deposit is a sum of money held in trust either as an initial part-payment in a purchasing process - also known as an earnest payment, or else, in the course of a rental agreement to ensure the property owner against default by the tenant and for the cost of repair in relation to any damage explicitly specified in the lease and that did in fact occur.
Substance over form is an accounting principle used "to ensure that financial statements give a complete, relevant, and accurate picture of transactions and events". If an entity practices the 'substance over form' concept, then the financial statements will show the overall financial reality of the entity, rather than the legal form of transactions (form).
In accounting for business transactions and other events, the measurement and reporting is for the economic impact of an event, instead of its legal form. Substance over form is critical for reliable financial reporting. It is particularly relevant in cases of revenue recognition, sale and purchase agreements, etc. The key point of the concept is that a transaction should not be recorded in such a manner as to hide the true intent of the transaction, which would mislead the readers of a company's financial statements.
Jordan Marsh Co. v. Commissioner, 269 F.2d 453 was a United States income tax case decided by the Second Circuit.
Ijarah,, is a term of fiqh and product in Islamic banking and finance.
In traditional fiqh, it means a contract for the hiring of persons or renting/leasing of the services or the “usufruct” of a property, generally for a fixed period and price. In hiring, the employer is called musta’jir, while the employee is called ajir. Ijarah need not lead to purchase. In conventional leasing an "operating lease" does not end in a change of ownership, nor does the type of ijarah known as al-ijarah (tashghiliyah).
