It looks like most of the 20 or 30 largest cities have such a system, even if most have plans to phase it out, that will be a process of decades. The lease is

It looks like most of the 20 or 30 largest cities have such a system, even if most have plans to phase it out, that will be a process of decades. The lease is normally bought for a period of 20 to 40 years. When that period is up though, the county can and sometimes will refuse to renew the lease if they can sell the ground for a higher price to someone else, or if they want to change the zoning of the area. Home owners don't always consider this risk, they just buy the property, along with the lease, from the previous owner. This isn't a great tragedy if the ground happens to be a sports field or a petting zoo, but not so long ago there was a tragic case of a man who lost his home because the county refused to renew the lease. The county decided to split the property, partitioned his home and sold half of it to someone else. His ex wife was allowed to rent the other half of the property from the new owner of the lease. This case was in the news, because after losing a lawsuit and a series of appeals, the man lost the house he had bought, with a mortgage largely paid off, and all he had to show for it was a bill for removing improvements he had built in the yard. After exhausting all legal options, he decided to undo the partitioning of his former home with a sledge hammer, which landed him in the papers (and probably in jail) as the crazy ex husband with the sledge hammer. edit: http://uitspraken.rechtspraak.nl/inziendocument?id=ECLI:NL:RBMNE:2014:4010 http://uitspraken.rechtspraak.nl/inziendocument?id=ECLI:NL:R...