6 ms·

A 120-Year Lease on Life Outlasts Apartment Heir (1995)

53 points by tshtf 11y ago

drpgq 11y ago
Interesting that no one has gotten particularly close to outliving her.
- eru 11y ago
  It's hard to catch up, when everyone moves at the same speed.
  - maaku 11y ago
    Solution is simple: move Earth to the vicinity of a black hole.
- kristopolous 11y ago
  There's many claims of longevity which lack official documentation. So you need to live to say 125 and then have a city or governance with a 125 year old piece of paper to back you up. Therein it's not coincidental that the oldest verified are from places like France, the United States, Canada and Japan.
  - superuser2 11y ago
    Some of the documented record-holders turn out to actually be dead, but their families hid their death to continue collecting pensions/social security on their behalf.
dang 11y ago
I seem to recall that she was asked what Van Gogh was like, and replied that he smelled bad.
- jakub_h 11y ago
  Because he had no nose?
  - aylmao 11y ago
    he cut his ear lol
cpncrunch 11y ago
"Mrs. Calment, physically active all her life, rode a bicycle until she was 100" That should probably have been a warning sign that she wasn't going to drop dead any time soon.
- limeyx 11y ago
  Yes but she was "only" 90 when he signed the lease :)
rokhayakebe 11y ago
Life is a drama with sprinkles of comedy.
donretag 11y ago
Fantastic story. According to Wikipedia, Jeanne Calment did pass away two years later in 1997 at the age of 122.5 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment
- ArcticCelt 11y ago
  Andre-Francois Raffray was the dude that made the deal and died in 1995 at 77. Jeanne Calment is the women who died later in 1997 at the age of 122.5.
  - donretag 11y ago
    Oops, wrong copy-n-paste buffer! BTW, I edited the original.
    - ArcticCelt 11y ago
      No worry I suspected a typo. Like you I went straight to Wikipedia because I wondered by how long she outlived the article that 1995 article.
spullara 11y ago
Not really. The widow of the couple that bought the lease collected it 2 years after her husbands death.
- oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
  This is an important point. No sudden huge finanical loss was incurred when the husband died because of this arrangement. In fact, depending on inheritance tax, the widow might well end up getting a favourable deal (again, financially before anyone accuses me of being callous!). Still, any arrangement in which an individual might benefit from another's death is slightly dubious, much more so if the two parties aren't related.
samstave 11y ago
Too bad she didn't have a Fitbit or Apple health app so we could have that data :-( --- EDIT: Who the fuck would downvote that?? Knowing the exercise habits of a 120 year old person should be awesome. You think I'm playing fanboi? Jesus, no it just would have been valuable to know her physical habits. So, explain yourselves.
- thesimpsons1022 11y ago
  murkt
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- onion2k 11y ago
  I didn't downvote you but I certainly don't agree with your point. Data about her exercise is hers. It's private. Just because it might be "useful" (in a cargo-cult'ing "what works for one person surely works for all" unscientific and nonsensical version of "useful") doesn't mean we should have any access to that information any more than access to her email would be "useful" to look at the way 100-year-olds communicate electronically. In my opinion we should be thinking of ways we can do useful data science without access to private data, not working out ways to make gathering private data easier.
  - madaxe_again 11y ago
    Well, you say that, but given the arrangement, is it? By taking on a viager you effectively act as pension and actuarial agent - and knowing the health of your client is highly relevant to the investment you are making. This is why one has to have a medical to get health insurance.
    - onion2k 11y ago
      I wasn't suggesting no one should have access to other people's data. If there's a good reason, such as informing the basis of a contract in the case of a medical to get health insurance, then both parties benefit - one gets to understand the risk they're undertaking and the other gets insurance. So long as the person having the medical understands what they're handing over that's fine. What I take issue with is the assumption that any data that could be analysed for some marginal good should be openly available. Data is hugely powerful and incredibly valuable, so we need to take individual privacy in to great consideration. In the case of this old lady the tangible benefits of her data being analysed is so tiny (it's not a controlled study, there's no rigour to 'using a fitbit', and it's a such a small sample size of literally 1 person that any hope of anonymity is impossible) that her privacy is far more important than any possible insight in to ageing that the data might give us.
gaur 11y ago
> Although the amount Mr. Raffray already paid is more than twice the apartment's current market value, his widow is obligated to keep sending that monthly check. If Mrs. Calment outlives her, too, then the Raffray children and grandchildren will have to pay. Hard to see how that would be legal.
- shawn-butler 11y ago
  It is very legal and common in France. The overall payment is calculated according to the age of the seller on a scale set down by French law. It isn't really a purchase or deed contract. It is an agreement between two estates. The property becomes an inheritance so that is why it persists generations. I think that is the best way to explain it anyway.
  - gaur 11y ago
    Then I don't know why the author didn't just say "his family will have to continue paying out of his estate". I suspect that kind of obligation is very legal and common in most of Europe and North America (and probably elsewhere): if someone dies, their debts and contracts are settled against their estate. The way it's written, it sounds like the family was legally obligated to keep paying until Calment's death, even if the estate ran dry.
    - MichaelBurge 11y ago
      The Bible mentions punishments continued to the children, and in some cases up to 10 generations from the person who committed it. A typical passage might say, "Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me". I think King David was only allowed to be king because he was the first generation in 10 after such an incident. I don't know if Israel today still has any crimes that punish the family. It also wouldn't matter for a civil agreement like this. However, in ancient Israel everyone's debts and land were forfeited every 7 and 49 years, so real estate would be priced according to how far the country was from a reset. That would certainly affect a similar agreement.
frogpelt 11y ago
And yet she didn't get to experience what my great-grandmother did, which was to live in parts of three centuries. She was born in 1899 and died in 2002. Admittedly, she probably didn't remember the first '99.
lordnacho 11y ago
How incredibly unfortunate. The annual death rate for people in their 90s is probably in the 10s of %, and rising every year. Someone posted a nice infographic where you could put in your age and it would give you some simulated death ages. It was pretty hard to get over 100 even when starting quite close to it. This guy happened to pick the oldest person ever.
- maaku 11y ago
  Actually death rates level out fairly quickly, at least until you hit a wall at about 120.
  - tonyedgecombe 11y ago
    Yes, I think I read that cancer rates fall off slightly after a certain age.
- tokenadult 11y ago
  The Social Security Administration in the United States publishes an Actuarial Life Table that is updated once in a while based on recent experience of life expectancy at various ages, going all the way up to age 119. This table always UNDERestimates a person's probability of living into the future, because the experience of each age group keeps getting better (that is, the death rate keeps decreasing) for each age group over time. https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html You wrote, Someone posted a nice infographic where you could put in your age and it would give you some simulated death ages. I think I saw that posted to HN back in the day. I've recently been looking up new information about longevity, and a link I've not seen posted here before, from the Harvard Gazette, http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/2006/07.20/10-deathquiz.html http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/2006/07.20/10-deathquiz.html is interesting on the long-term trend of increasing life expectancy.
f_allwein 11y ago
> She moved that year into a nursing home, which is now named after her. This is pretty cool as well. I'll put this on my list of goals when I'm old.
joelhaasnoot 11y ago
This story somehow made its way into a sermon prep book for pastors - I've heard this about 20 times in sermons by now...
- cafard 11y ago
  How curious--I suppose leaning on the Raffray side of the story?

53 points by tshtf 11y ago

drpgq 11y ago

Interesting that no one has gotten particularly close to outliving her.

eru 11y ago
It's hard to catch up, when everyone moves at the same speed.
- maaku 11y ago
  Solution is simple: move Earth to the vicinity of a black hole.
kristopolous 11y ago
There's many claims of longevity which lack official documentation. So you need to live to say 125 and then have a city or governance with a 125 year old piece of paper to back you up. Therein it's not coincidental that the oldest verified are from places like France, the United States, Canada and Japan.
- superuser2 11y ago
  Some of the documented record-holders turn out to actually be dead, but their families hid their death to continue collecting pensions/social security on their behalf.

dang 11y ago

I seem to recall that she was asked what Van Gogh was like, and replied that he smelled bad.

jakub_h 11y ago
Because he had no nose?
- aylmao 11y ago
  he cut his ear lol

cpncrunch 11y ago

"Mrs. Calment, physically active all her life, rode a bicycle until she was 100" That should probably have been a warning sign that she wasn't going to drop dead any time soon.

limeyx 11y ago
Yes but she was "only" 90 when he signed the lease :)

rokhayakebe 11y ago

Life is a drama with sprinkles of comedy.

donretag 11y ago

Fantastic story. According to Wikipedia, Jeanne Calment did pass away two years later in 1997 at the age of 122.5 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment

ArcticCelt 11y ago
Andre-Francois Raffray was the dude that made the deal and died in 1995 at 77. Jeanne Calment is the women who died later in 1997 at the age of 122.5.
- donretag 11y ago
  Oops, wrong copy-n-paste buffer! BTW, I edited the original.
  - ArcticCelt 11y ago
    No worry I suspected a typo. Like you I went straight to Wikipedia because I wondered by how long she outlived the article that 1995 article.

spullara 11y ago

Not really. The widow of the couple that bought the lease collected it 2 years after her husbands death.

oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
This is an important point. No sudden huge finanical loss was incurred when the husband died because of this arrangement. In fact, depending on inheritance tax, the widow might well end up getting a favourable deal (again, financially before anyone accuses me of being callous!). Still, any arrangement in which an individual might benefit from another's death is slightly dubious, much more so if the two parties aren't related.

samstave 11y ago

Too bad she didn't have a Fitbit or Apple health app so we could have that data :-( --- EDIT: Who the fuck would downvote that?? Knowing the exercise habits of a 120 year old person should be awesome. You think I'm playing fanboi? Jesus, no it just would have been valuable to know her physical habits. So, explain yourselves.

thesimpsons1022 11y ago
murkt
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
onion2k 11y ago
I didn't downvote you but I certainly don't agree with your point. Data about her exercise is hers. It's private. Just because it might be "useful" (in a cargo-cult'ing "what works for one person surely works for all" unscientific and nonsensical version of "useful") doesn't mean we should have any access to that information any more than access to her email would be "useful" to look at the way 100-year-olds communicate electronically. In my opinion we should be thinking of ways we can do useful data science without access to private data, not working out ways to make gathering private data easier.
- madaxe_again 11y ago
  Well, you say that, but given the arrangement, is it? By taking on a viager you effectively act as pension and actuarial agent - and knowing the health of your client is highly relevant to the investment you are making. This is why one has to have a medical to get health insurance.
  - onion2k 11y ago
    I wasn't suggesting no one should have access to other people's data. If there's a good reason, such as informing the basis of a contract in the case of a medical to get health insurance, then both parties benefit - one gets to understand the risk they're undertaking and the other gets insurance. So long as the person having the medical understands what they're handing over that's fine. What I take issue with is the assumption that any data that could be analysed for some marginal good should be openly available. Data is hugely powerful and incredibly valuable, so we need to take individual privacy in to great consideration. In the case of this old lady the tangible benefits of her data being analysed is so tiny (it's not a controlled study, there's no rigour to 'using a fitbit', and it's a such a small sample size of literally 1 person that any hope of anonymity is impossible) that her privacy is far more important than any possible insight in to ageing that the data might give us.

gaur 11y ago

> Although the amount Mr. Raffray already paid is more than twice the apartment's current market value, his widow is obligated to keep sending that monthly check. If Mrs. Calment outlives her, too, then the Raffray children and grandchildren will have to pay. Hard to see how that would be legal.

shawn-butler 11y ago
It is very legal and common in France. The overall payment is calculated according to the age of the seller on a scale set down by French law. It isn't really a purchase or deed contract. It is an agreement between two estates. The property becomes an inheritance so that is why it persists generations. I think that is the best way to explain it anyway.
- gaur 11y ago
  Then I don't know why the author didn't just say "his family will have to continue paying out of his estate". I suspect that kind of obligation is very legal and common in most of Europe and North America (and probably elsewhere): if someone dies, their debts and contracts are settled against their estate. The way it's written, it sounds like the family was legally obligated to keep paying until Calment's death, even if the estate ran dry.
  - MichaelBurge 11y ago
    The Bible mentions punishments continued to the children, and in some cases up to 10 generations from the person who committed it. A typical passage might say, "Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me". I think King David was only allowed to be king because he was the first generation in 10 after such an incident. I don't know if Israel today still has any crimes that punish the family. It also wouldn't matter for a civil agreement like this. However, in ancient Israel everyone's debts and land were forfeited every 7 and 49 years, so real estate would be priced according to how far the country was from a reset. That would certainly affect a similar agreement.

frogpelt 11y ago

And yet she didn't get to experience what my great-grandmother did, which was to live in parts of three centuries. She was born in 1899 and died in 2002. Admittedly, she probably didn't remember the first '99.

lordnacho 11y ago

How incredibly unfortunate. The annual death rate for people in their 90s is probably in the 10s of %, and rising every year. Someone posted a nice infographic where you could put in your age and it would give you some simulated death ages. It was pretty hard to get over 100 even when starting quite close to it. This guy happened to pick the oldest person ever.

maaku 11y ago
Actually death rates level out fairly quickly, at least until you hit a wall at about 120.
- tonyedgecombe 11y ago
  Yes, I think I read that cancer rates fall off slightly after a certain age.
tokenadult 11y ago
The Social Security Administration in the United States publishes an Actuarial Life Table that is updated once in a while based on recent experience of life expectancy at various ages, going all the way up to age 119. This table always UNDERestimates a person's probability of living into the future, because the experience of each age group keeps getting better (that is, the death rate keeps decreasing) for each age group over time. https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html You wrote, Someone posted a nice infographic where you could put in your age and it would give you some simulated death ages. I think I saw that posted to HN back in the day. I've recently been looking up new information about longevity, and a link I've not seen posted here before, from the Harvard Gazette, http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/2006/07.20/10-deathquiz.html http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/2006/07.20/10-deathquiz.html is interesting on the long-term trend of increasing life expectancy.

f_allwein 11y ago

> She moved that year into a nursing home, which is now named after her. This is pretty cool as well. I'll put this on my list of goals when I'm old.

joelhaasnoot 11y ago

This story somehow made its way into a sermon prep book for pastors - I've heard this about 20 times in sermons by now...

cafard 11y ago
How curious--I suppose leaning on the Raffray side of the story?