The Law
Under the traditional American common law doctrine, the 99-year term was not literal, but merely an arbitrary time span beyond the life expectancy of any possible lessee or lessor.
In the law of several US states, a 99-year lease will always be the longest possible contract for realty by statute, but many have enacted shorter terms and some allow infinite terms.
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.
Read more about this topic: 99-year Lease
Famous quotes containing the word law:
“A quality is something capable of being completely embodied. A law never can be embodied in its character as a law except by determining a habit. A quality is how something may or might have been. A law is how an endless future must continue to be.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)
“Judge—A law student who marks his own examination-papers.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)