Ground lease
National Real Estate Exam glossary · National Real Estate Exam
Definition
A long-term lease of land alone, under which the tenant typically owns and finances improvements built on the leased land for the lease term, after which the improvements usually revert to the landowner.
Ground lease in plain English
A ground lease is when someone rents just the bare land — not a building — usually for a very long time, like 50 or 99 years. The tenant then builds and pays for their own structure on that rented land, uses it for the whole lease, and when the lease finally ends the building typically becomes the landowner's property. Imagine renting an empty lot, putting your own food truck stand on it, and agreeing that decades later the stand stays with the landlord when you leave. Businesses use this to build on prime land they could never afford to buy outright.
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