Ground leases, net leases and recorded memoranda of lease

What a ground lease is and who owns what under one, how a net lease shifts a building's costs to its tenant, why long leases are recorded in ACRIS as memoranda of lease, how transfer and property taxes treat leases, and what Battery Park City shows about all of it.

Most buildings in New York City stand on land their owner also owns. Some do not: the land belongs to one party and the building, for a term of decades, to another, under a ground lease. Others are let whole to a tenant who pays the taxes and the upkeep, under a net lease. Both arrangements are recorded, if at all, as leases — and leases show up in the public record in their own way.

Ground leases

A ground lease is a long lease of land on which the tenant builds, or already owns, the building. The landowner — the fee owner — keeps the land and receives ground rent; the tenant holds a leasehold, the right to use the land and the building for the lease's term, and can usually sell, mortgage or sublet it. When the term ends, unless it is extended, the land and what stands on it return to the landowner. The City's own long-term leases, the ones the Department of Citywide Administrative Services auctions, follow the pattern: the tenant leases the whole lot, pays the taxes that would fall on it, and runs the building.

The layers of a ground lease: who owns the land, who owns the building, and who rents space in it.

Ground leases are how much of the public land in the city is built on. Two examples whose terms are public:

Battery Park City. The Battery Park City Authority, a State authority, owns the land under the whole neighborhood and leases it, parcel by parcel, to the owners of the buildings. Its residential buildings — some 8,300 condominium, co-operative and rental apartments under 30 leases — run to 2069; its commercial leases now run to 2119, after a December 2025 agreement extended Brookfield Place's ground lease by fifty years. Condominium owners there pay ground rent through their common charges.
Roosevelt Island. The City leases the island to the State under a master lease signed in 1969 that runs to 2068; in November 2025 the City and the island's State operating corporation agreed to extend it by ten years.

Net leases

A net lease is a lease under which the tenant pays, besides rent, costs an owner would normally pay — the property tax, insurance, maintenance and repairs. When the tenant pays all three the lease is often called a triple net lease. City forms recognize the arrangement: the Department of Finance's annual income and expense filing for income-producing property asks whether a tenant leasing the whole property pays its utilities, repairs and property tax, and lets a ground landlord report the ground rent it receives; the Tax Commission accepts an appeal from a tenant leasing the whole property who pays its taxes; and the City's commercial rent tax counts the taxes a tenant pays on its landlord's behalf as rent.

Recording a lease: the memorandum of lease

New York's recording act treats a lease of more than three years as a conveyance, like a deed: if it is not recorded, a later buyer of the property who records first is not bound by it. The law also lets the parties record a short summary instead of the whole lease.

A memorandum of lease is that summary. It is signed and acknowledged by both parties like a deed and names the landlord and tenant with their addresses, the lease and its date, the premises, the term with its start and end dates, and any rights to renew or extend. It protects the tenant's lease against a later buyer, and the rent is not among the things it must state.

ACRIS indexes recorded leases under five types of document: the lease itself, the memorandum of lease, the assignment of lease (a tenant passing its lease to another), the termination of lease or memorandum, and the subordination of lease, by which a tenant agrees its lease ranks behind a lender's mortgage. On a lease and a memorandum, party 1 is the landlord and party 2 the tenant. An assignment of leases and rents is something else: a lender's security over a building's rental income, recorded with a mortgage.

Memoranda now far outnumber full leases. By BlockLot Intelligence's count of ACRIS, the City Register recorded 4,037 memoranda of lease and 412 full leases in the ten years 2016 to 2025 — within 1% of the City's published copy of ACRIS:

Lease documents recorded in ACRIS, by year

Year	Memoranda	Leases	Ended
2025	433	35	147
2024	448	28	130
2023	365	25	134
2022	385	37	143
2021	328	45	152
2020	305	29	139
2019	403	66	229
2018	405	53	256
2017	456	38	244
2016	509	56	209

Documents the City Register recorded each calendar year: memoranda of lease, full leases, and terminations of a lease or memorandum (ended), each counted once. Staten Island's are recorded by the Richmond County Clerk. BlockLot Intelligence, computed October 11, 2026.

A lease is usually recorded soon after it is signed, but not always. By BlockLot Intelligence's count of documents recorded from 2023 on, a memorandum of lease reached the City Register a median 28 days after the date written on it, with a quarter taking more than 100 days; an assignment of lease a median 15 days.

From signing a lease document to recording it

Days from the date written on each document to the day the City Register recorded it, for documents recorded 2023 to 2025. The bar ends at the median; the pale band covers the middle half. BlockLot Intelligence, computed October 11, 2026.

Most leases are never recorded at all: a lease of three years or less is not a conveyance, and a recording is a choice the parties make to protect a long lease. In BlockLot's reading of their tenants' names, most recorded leases are commercial: businesses' stores and offices, cell-site carriers, ground tenants and the companies formed to hold a lease.

Taxes on leases

Transfer taxes. The City's real property transfer tax applies to a grant, assignment or surrender of a leasehold as it does to a deed, when the consideration is over $25,000, and a transfer-tax return must be filed before a lease, assignment or surrender of a lease can be recorded. The State's transfer tax applies to a new lease only when its term, with options, exceeds 49 years, the tenant makes or may make substantial improvements, and the lease covers substantially all of the premises; transfer taxes has the rates.
Property tax. The Department of Finance bills the property under the name on its roll, which is usually the owner of record — though on some ground-leased lots, as at 200 Vesey Street below, it is the tenant. Who in the end pays is the lease's business, and a net or ground lease puts it on the tenant.
Payments in lieu of taxes. Battery Park City's land belongs to a public authority and is exempt, and its ground tenants pay a payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) instead: each building pays the Authority an amount worked out from the City's assessed value and the Manhattan tax rate, unless its lease says otherwise, and the Authority passes what it does not need to the City.

A worked example. 200 Vesey Street, a 54-storey office tower in Battery Park City, stands on land the Battery Park City Authority leases out. ACRIS holds 10 lease documents for the lot, from a lease recorded in 1986 to memoranda of lease recorded on January 6, 2026; ACRIS holds no deed for the lot. The Department of Finance's roll names the tenant, AMERICAN EXPRESS CO, and values the property at $636,522,000, but 100.0% of its assessed value is exempt under the Department's code for the Battery Park City Authority: under the Authority's leases, the building pays the Authority in lieu of taxes.

Where you see this in BlockLot

A building's page links its recorded lease documents, and the Recorded leases drawer lists each one — memorandum, lease, assignment, termination or subordination — with its date, the tenant (a private person's name is never shown), the lots it covers and whether a termination was recorded. Area pages list the recorded leases on their lots.

The Recorded leases drawer: memoranda of lease recorded against the lot in January 2026, each naming its tenant.
A memorandum of lease
The tenant it names, a company

Questions people ask

What is a ground lease? A long lease of land on which the tenant owns or builds the building. The landowner keeps the land and receives ground rent; the tenant can use, sell or mortgage the leasehold for the term, and the land and building return to the landowner when it ends unless it is extended.

What is a triple net lease? A lease under which the tenant pays the property tax, insurance and maintenance on top of its rent, so the landlord's rent arrives "net" of those costs.

Why record a memorandum of lease instead of the lease? Because a lease of more than three years must be recorded to bind a later buyer, and a memorandum does that with a summary — the parties, the premises and the term — instead of the whole lease.

Can you buy an apartment on a ground lease? Yes — the condominium and co-op apartments in Battery Park City stand on leased land. Condominium owners there pay ground rent and payments in lieu of taxes through their common charges.

Who pays the property tax on a ground lease? The lease decides. Under the City's own long-term leases and Battery Park City's, the tenant pays — in Battery Park City, as a payment in lieu of taxes.

Are all leases recorded in ACRIS? No. Only leases the parties choose to record appear — usually long commercial leases and ground leases, mostly as memoranda.

Deeds in New York City: the kinds of deed, and grantor and grantee — What a deed is, the kinds New York law describes — bargain and sale, quitclaim, executor's, referee's — transfer-on-death and life estate deeds, who the grantor and grantee are, and what party 1 and party 2 mean on any document in ACRIS.
ACRIS and the City Register: where deeds and mortgages are recorded — What the Office of the City Register records, what ACRIS is and how to search it, how long a deed or mortgage takes to reach the record, what is not in ACRIS — Staten Island, lis pendens, records before 1966 — and how owners can be alerted when something is recorded against their property.
Who owns a building: LLCs, the owner of record and the beneficial owner — How to find who owns a New York City building — the deed, HPD's registration, the Department of State's registry — why so many owners are LLCs, the difference between the owner of record and the beneficial owner, and how BlockLot groups an owner's buildings.
Transfer taxes: the NYC RPTT, the State transfer tax and the mansion tax — The taxes due when New York City property changes hands — the City's Real Property Transfer Tax, the State's real estate transfer tax and its higher New York City rate, and the mansion tax — with their rates, who pays each, and worked numbers for homes and buildings.
Property tax exemptions: STAR, senior, disabled, veterans, clergy, J-51, 421-a and 485-x — NYC property tax exemptions explained: STAR, senior and disabled homeowners, veterans, clergy, 421-a, 485-x, J-51 and nonprofit property.
Storefront registration and vacancy: Local Law 157 — New York City's storefront registry (Local Law 157 of 2019): which owners register their ground- and second-floor storefronts with the Department of Finance each year, the vacancy filings, what DOF publishes, and how many storefronts stand empty.
Absentee owners, owner-occupied homes and owners' mailing addresses — What "absentee owner" means in New York City property records, where an owner's mailing address comes from, which rules turn on whether an owner lives in the home — HPD registration, STAR, the senior exemption, the co-op and condo abatement, Good Cause Eviction — and how far a deed's address can be trusted.
When an owner dies: estates, probate and what the property record shows — What happens to a New York City property when its owner dies — joint ownership, transfer-on-death deeds and life estates, probate and administration in the Surrogate's Court, the executor's deed, the estate tax lien — and what each step leaves in ACRIS and on the tax bill.

Sources

By BlockLot. Reviewed October 9, 2026. Figures by BlockLot Intelligence, computed from public data on October 11, 2026. This page explains the rules in general; it is not legal or tax advice. For a decision about a specific property, check the official source or ask a professional. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.