# The legal implications of a century-long absence

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-legal-implications-of-a-century-long-absence/764384>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [August 29, 2016, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-legal-implications-of-a-century-long-absence/764384 "2016-08-29T11:20:34Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\
**Post date:** [August 31, 2016, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-legal-implications-of-a-century-long-absence/764384/21 "2016-08-31T17:16:25Z")

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> [@Lemur866](#):
>
> It might be unfair to pick Germany as an example due to the turbulent history of the early 20th Century. But pretty much every European country went through similar troubles.

Even without the direct effects of the world wars, look at how much borders have shifted and governments have changed since 1816. France is on it’s fifth republic, huge chunks of what was the British Empire are independent, the borders of most countries in Europe have shifted a lot, government types have switched (especially in eastern europe). (And they shift even more if you go back 16 years more and add the Napoleonic Wars changes). Most of Europe has changed currency, and there’s a decent chance the Euro will go away by 2216.

> [@](#):
>
> The notion that you can put $1000 into a trust at 5% growth for 200 years and come back and your $1000 is worth $16 million is fantasy.

Or it works and inflation is such that you do have $16 million, but it has the buying power of maybe $1600 when you try to actually spend it 🙂

Also, you’re not going to put $1000 into a trust that will last for long - you need to have significant property and/or wealth that produces enough interest to pay the overhead of administering the trust. If your net worth is under a million dollars, I doubt that you’d be able to find any way to set things up to keep title to property over that time.

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