Sample Ground Lease

In 1991, the Institute for Community Economics published the first edition of the Community Land Trust Legal Manual, which contained a “model” residential ground lease. Ten years later, a major revision of the Legal Manual and Model Lease was carried out by a team of people who were actively engaged in providing technical assistance to CLTs, including Kirby White, Jeff Yegian, and Carol Lewis from the staff of ICE and John Davis, Tim McKenzie, Michael Brown, and Mary O’Hara from Burlington Associates in Community Development, LLC. The principal legal consultant for this process was David Abromowitz, from the Boston firm of Goulston and Storrs, P.C. Financial support for the preparation of a revised edition of the Community Land Trust Legal Manual, published by ICE in 2002, was provided by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Editable, electronic copies of the “Revised Model Community Land Trust Ground Lease” and printed copies of the Community Land Trust Legal Manual can be obtained from ICE (57 School Street, Springfield, MA 01105-1331; www.iceclt.org).

Posted here, for educational purposes, is a non-editable, read-only version of the a working draft of the ground lease recently adopted by the Community Housing Trust of Sarasota County in Sarasota,Florida. This ground lease, developed with the assistance of Burlington Associates, closely follows the form and content prescribed by ICE’s model lease. It is posted with permission of the Community Housing Trust.

Click here to download a copy of the working draft of the Community Housing Trust ground lease