Basically the title. For example, Hong Kong was under British sovereignty for 99 years, Bolivia obtained in 2010 a lease for a Peruvian port for 99 years since then, and in 1940 the UK granted to the US the rights to build military bases on some of its territories and control them for 99 years. Why exactly 99 and not 10, 50, 100 or any other “round” number? Is this a coincidence or is there some diplomatic reason for this?
Edit: UK and England are not the same lol
In: 607
In the law we have a doctrine called the rule against perpetuities. If you don’t want to outright sell the property (fee simple), you can make a conditional transfer of land instead. I.e. if you want them to do something specific with the land, you can grant it on the condition that they do X or Y.
But we don’t want conditions (temporary interests) on property to last forever. If we allowed that, all property could eventually get bogged down in conditions that would make any development or change unfeasible.
For example, if I give you a plot of land with a church on it, on the condition that you maintain the church, my descendants could swoop in in 1000 years to steal the land back from whoever currently owns it because the church has been torn down because the religion it was for is extinct. To prevent this, contracts involving land must be resolved within a certain period of time. So I have to say “I give you this land on the condition that you maintain the church on it for 50 years” instead. That way, after 50 years you know you are free to do whatever you want.
99 years is a traditional term for the longest possible lease or real estate contract, so it gets used in international treaties, which often involve the transfer of land, where the transfer is not meant to be perpetual.
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