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Simple English definitions for legal terms
lease for life
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A quick definition of lease for life:
A lease for life is an agreement where someone can rent a piece of land for as long as they live, instead of for a set number of years. The person who rents the land pays a small amount of money each year, but also has to pay a fee when they first start renting and when they renew the lease. If the person who owns the land is a group like a monastery or college, they get extra money from these fees. However, this type of lease became less popular when laws were made in the 1800s that made it harder for groups to make money this way.
A more thorough explanation:
A lease for life is a type of lease for land that lasts for the duration of a specified number of lives instead of a set number of years. Unlike a tenant with a lease for a set number of years, a lessee for life could recover the land if dispossessed.
For example, if a person leased a piece of land for their lifetime and the lifetime of their two children, the lease would end when all three individuals had passed away. The rent paid for a lease for life was usually small, but a fine was paid when the lease was granted, and another fine was payable when the lessee exercised the right to replace the lives and extend the lease.
Leases for life were popular in the past, but they lost their popularity when legislation in the first half of the nineteenth century compelled corporations to add fines to their capital instead of treating them as income.