I read recently that high-rise, steel-reinforced concrete buildings are designed and built to last more than 100 years according to international construction standards. That led me into thinking if this is one of the reasons why certain buildings have a 99 year lease.
It makes sense that the lease is given up to the building's estimated usable life. The immediate benefit that I can think of is that the lease forces the owners to redevelop the building so that the useful life can be increased, be it a renovation or a total tear-down and rebuild.
Makes sense? At least that will partially explain why the pipes always have problems in old buildings.
2 comments:
Actually the true beneficiary of a lease hold property is the government. If you think about it, there is no reason to even have a lease in the first place: one should own the land forever (remember we pay property taxes).
But a freehold will deprive the govt from making money off the inflation of the land. So, at the end of the day, it boils down to dollars and cents.
(the reason for forcing repairs is tenuous to me: if my home is leaking, I will certainly carry out repairs on my own accord)
It really depends. For example, if the pipes below you is leaking to the floor below you, and it requires you to hack your floor to fix it, will you do that? Pipe leaking is a very common occurrence in very old buildings.
There are certain I will term as infrastructure that does not last beyond 99 years. Therefore, if you look at it from the other angle, having a lease helps protect the buyers because they will know that they will not buy a home where the internal pipes are going to burst anytime.
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