No — and the answer is structural, not clever. Depreciation comes from the building, never the land. Sell the land on a 99-year leaseback and your schedule does not move: 100% of the depreciable basis stays with you, nothing is recaptured, and the ground rent adds a new deduction. Per dollar you still have invested, the sheltering actually improves.
Take a $2M apartment property where 80% of value is the building. The industry example runs like this:
| Own land + building | Building on leased land | |
|---|---|---|
| Capital in the deal | $2,000,000 | $1,600,000 (the land came out as cash) |
| Depreciable basis | $1,600,000 (the land’s $400K never depreciated) | $1,600,000 — unchanged |
| Annual depreciation (27.5-yr) | ~$58,000 | ~$58,000 — same dollars, on 20% less capital |
| Deductions per dollar invested | Baseline | ~25% more — the classic result for ground-leased property |
| New deduction | — | Ground rent, fully deductible as an operating expense |
The reframe for your CPA: a ground lease does not shrink the tax shelter — it removes the one layer of the deal that never sheltered anything and hands its value back as cash. The building’s depreciation, its 1250 history, and its basis all continue exactly as before.
No. Land is not depreciable and never contributed to your depreciation schedule. The building’s depreciable basis, method, and remaining life continue unchanged after a ground lease; you lose nothing.
No. You are selling the land, and the land has no depreciation to recapture. Section 1250 recapture attaches to the improvements, which you keep, and stays dormant unless you someday sell the building.
Yes, as an ordinary operating expense of the property under a true lease — a deduction you did not have before the ground lease.
Because the same depreciation dollars sit on less invested capital. In the standard example, a $2M apartment at an 80% building allocation deducts about $58K a year either way — but on leased land the owner has only $1.6M in the deal, so deductions per dollar of equity are roughly 25% higher, plus the deductible ground rent.
The land never sheltered a dollar of income — it just sat there. Send the address and the stabilized NOI and see what that layer is worth as cash in hand; the depreciation stays where it always was.
Email us the property