From a reader identifying himself as Nick Taylor:

Hancock, you've got it all wrong for several reasons. Ground rents are a questionable process whether they are registered or not. Secondly, expirations for property claims happen all the time. Look at it as casinos calling chips. Ignorance of a law does not mean it does not exist. Finally, I knew they were expiring and I don't even own any. What if these folks missed the fourth of july? You going to pay to repeat the fireworks?

In Sunday's column I argued that ground rents are a vested property right that cannot be abolished by an arbitrary deadline. The reader uses the example of casinos calling chips to suggest that property rights expire on deadline all the time. Here is another example that would seem to undermine my argument much more: When countries change currencies (ie. going from French francs to euros), sometimes the old currencies expire upon a certain date.

The casino example is between private parties, and presumably there is fine print in the deemed contract that allows the chip expiration. Currencies, however, are government obligations and perhaps more relevant to ground rents. However, ground-rent extiguishment is the government intervening in a contract between two private parties. There are three parties. Currency expiration is between the government and person who holds its paper.