Landlord

“ Landlord. You have a house and I live in it. It is true that the chimneys smoke, and that you most energetically refuse to have them repaired. However, the house is yours, and you possess most decidedly the right of making a profit by it. Understand, once for all, that I never contest your right. As for me, I depend upon my wit, I do not possess much, but I have a tool—it may be either a pen, or a pencil, or a hammer—which enables me, in the ordinary course of things, to live and to pay with more or less regularity my quarter’s rent. ”

“ Because even the best disposed landlord may be influenced to alter his policy by the advice of an agent, by the influence of his family, or by the state of his finances.
Because a good landlord, who knows the tenants and cares for them, may be succeeded by a son who is a 'fast young man,' addicted to the turf and overwhelmed in debt, while the estate gets into the hands of usurers. ”

“ These words softened the landlord a little. "If it is so," said he, "I shall know how to treat this Master Tenzer if he comes again to meddle with things which do not concern him; he preached me a sermon upon your misery, and on the duty of assisting so poor a family. I am satisfied if he chooses to help you, for I shall have the better security for my rent. ”

“ I allude to the crowded manner in which they live together; the landlord of the house too often entirely regardless of any rule for restricting the number of its inmates; and his tenants sometimes deriving a large profit, beyond the amount of their own rent, from the numerous under-tenants whom they admit, without scruple or restraint, to share in the occupation of them. ”

“ Many a landlord has made a hard bargain for himself; and I happen to know of one case in particular, in which a family has long been, and is still, kept out of the enjoyment of a very valuable estate, as to any benefit of importance, purely by the circumstance that a weak-minded possessor of the property fancied he was securing souls for paradise by letting his farms on leases for ninety-nine years, at nominal rents, with a covenant that the tenant should go twice to a particular church! ”

“ But there is nothing to prevent a landlord who is able to pay his compensation from either turning a tenant out at the expiry of his holding, or demanding an exorbitant rent for letting him stay on. To place agriculture on a fair footing it appears to me that the landlord must be treated as a sort of sleeping-partner, who has supplied part of the capital of the concern, and has, in addition, by putting the tenant in possession of the land, contributed something analogous to the goodwill of a business, or saved the tenant the trouble of emigrating. ”

“ The landlord practically holds a perpetual mortgage, and the rental is the interest or increase exacted generation after generation.
The debtor working under a mortgage is cheered by the hope that he may be able, some day, to lift it, but the perpetual tenant on entailed lands knows that he is doomed to hopeless tenantry. He can never own the land and he is in the power of the landlord, who is often oppressive. ”

“ The landlord was not satisfied with this increased annual rent, but wanted something in advance, a 'sub,' but which he called a fine, amounting to £50,000." That is, as a man "may do what he will with his own," this landlord could, if it had suited him, have refused to renew the lease, and could have granted another lease to another man, who would have come into all the advantages gained by the draper who founded the business. [2] Here the tenant had made the land valuable, and the landlord demanded to benefit by his labour. ”

“ Well, first we can tackle the landlord, who, if he have money at all: and an impecunious landlord is a deadly and desperate thing to possess, and should be most carefully avoided: will be glad to do as we want for an extra rent at the rate of 5 per cent on whatever outlay he can make. We should get him to build out a servant’s sitting-room, and enlarge the pantry and scullery, and to put above the erection a servant’s bath and lavatory arrangement. ”

“ The middleman is that handy person, to the landlord, who assures him of a certain income from his property by buying certain rents at a deduction of 30 or 40 per cent., and collecting them as best he can. To the landlord he is a most useful man of business, thanks to whom he can count upon a certain amount of ready money. To the peasant he appears as a fiendish oppressor. ”

“ A devise of “ground rent” carries not only the rent but the reversion. Where a tenant is compelled, in order to protect himself in the enjoyment of the land in respect of which his rent is payable, to pay ground rent to a superior landlord (who is of course in a position to distrain on him for it) , he is considered as having been authorized by his immediate landlord to apply his rent, due or accruing due, in this manner, and the payment of the ground rent will be held to be payment of the rent itself or part of it. ”

“ An all-important factor is the “friendly rent-collector” who, while firm in her insistence upon prompt payment of the rent, forms a living link of sympathy and perception between the landlord or landlady and the tenant, and among the tenants themselves. The thorough training of this collector is essential, and for this training Miss Hill left minute prescriptions. ”

“ Hence, the chief characteristic of landlord power, as felt by the tenant, is arbitrariness. The agent may make any rule he pleases, and as many exceptions to every rule as he pleases. He may allow rents to run in arrear; he may suddenly come down upon the defaulter with 'a fell swoop;' he may require the rents to be paid up to the day; he may, without reason assigned, call in 'the hanging gale;' he may abate or increase the rents at will; he may inflict fines for delay or give notices to quit for the sole purpose of bringing in fees to his friend or relative, the solicitor. ”

“ But this did not make him less clear that a ground landlord has "a perfect right" to raise the rent when he sees that the tenant is succeeding in business. If he knows that a certain piece of land has become of increased value to the tenant, he has the perfect right to take the full advantage of this circumstance—as much right as the owner of a Derby winner has to ask a higher price for his horse after he has won the Derby than he would have asked before. ”

“ They are immediately and continually [424] in debt; but being there upon the soil, they can first feed themselves; this they do, and the rest, whatever it may be, is for the landlord.
"In such a condition," writes Mr Mill, "what can a tenant gain by any amount of industry or prudence, and what lose by any recklessness? If the landlord at any time exerted his full legal rights, the cottier would not be able even to live. ”

“ As property became secure, and landlords felt that the power of the State would protect them in all the rights of property, every vestige of these feudal tenures was abolished, and the relation between landlord and tenant has thus become purely commercial. A landlord offers his land to any one who is willing to take it; he is anxious to receive the highest rent he can obtain. ”

“ This is, of course, an extreme case ; but the system is the same in all cases—the ground landlord, who benefits most at least cost to himself, is the most protected by the law. which ensures that at every expiration and every transfer he shall find himself enriched by other men's labour, and the expenditure of other men's money, and the exercise of other men's abilities. ”

“ The modern landlord does not demand "aids"—he raises the rent. The modern landlord's power is practically absolute; the law does not limit it. In most cases, an English landlord treats his larger tenants well. ”

“ If the landlord makes the improvement—which he prefers doing, on the new system—he requires the tenant to pay at the rate of four to six per cent. in the form of rent—a clear gain to the landlord, who can borrow money on much lower terms, and can hardly invest his capital so profitably or so safely elsewhere. ”

“ The landlord or his agent demands the rent due and threatens ejectment, for he knows that he will speedily find another tenant for even the most miserable lodging; the slight credit given by the baker, the milkman, the grocer, is exhausted, and all efforts to obtain employment are ineffectual. ”

“ You think that an exceptionally economical landlord might indeed be able to say so much for himself; and that the increasing of their estates has at least been held a desirable thing by all of them, however Fortune, and the sweet thyme-scented Turf of England, might thwart their best intentions. Indeed it is well to have coveted—much more to have gained—increase of estate, in a certain manner. ”

“ Then, and always before, the practice of the landlord was—to lease large tracts at an easy rent to the most solvent person he could find, or to set in copartnership, (that is, by creating a joint tenancy in all the inhabitants of any particular town-land, making the rich accountable for the debt of the poor.) His only object was to secure his income; so that was accomplished, he cared little for the welfare of the inhabitants, or the cultivation of the estate. ”

“ You are living in the house and must pay the rent; and if you don’t do so, I shall take legal proceedings.”
“A man occupying a house, undoubtedly implies an obligation to pay rent,” replied Mr. Dunderly; “but you must recollect I have not yet attorned to you as my landlord.” ”

“ The chair and table merchant never engaged to pay my landlord my rent. Why should my landlord quarrel with him? If I have a pimple on my nose which is disagreeable to my landlord's peculiar ideas of beauty, my landlord has no business to scratch my chair and table merchant's nose, which has no pimple on it. ”

“ The purpose of the law is to remove from politics the landlord question, which has been a delicate one to deal with. Most of the larger estates were given to the ancestors of the present holders and many of the owners live in England and collect their rents through a local agent. The new law makes the government the landlord; and the tenant, by paying a certain annual sum for 63 years, becomes the owner of the fee. He has the privilege of paying all or any part, at any time, and can dispose of his interest. ”

“ On the one hand, there emerges the landlord who is a laborious and acute man of business, and who sets about exploiting the material resources of his estate with the instincts of a shopkeeper and the methods of a land-agent. ”

“ Landlord Distress Meetings.
For, in fact, it is not the farmer, but the Landlord and Parson, who wants relief from the “Collective.” The tenant’s remedy is, quitting his farm or bringing down his rent to what he can afford to give, wheat being 3 or 4 shillings a bushel. This is his remedy. What should he want high prices for? They can do him no good; and this I proved to the farmers last year. The fact is, the Landlords and Parsons are urging the farmers on to get something done to give them high rents and high tithes. ”

“ The landlord himself is the proper person to demand rent: if he employs another person, he must be duly authorised by power of attorney, clearly specifying the person from whom, and the premises for which the rent is due: or the demand will be insufficient, if the tenant should be inclined to evade payment. ”

“ In all cases of distress for rent it shall be lawful for the landlord, by himself, his agent, or attorney, to seize for rent any personal property of his tenant that may be found in the county where such tenant shall reside, and in no case shall the property of any other person, although the same may be found on the premises, be liable to seizure for rent due from such tenant.
'SECTION 8. Every landlord shall have a lien upon the crops, growing or grown upon the demised premises in any year, for rent that shall accrue for such year. ”

“ The landlord is anxious if possible to save for himself and those who may come after him something of the reality of his property, and the tenant feels that, though something of the nobility of property has been promised to him by the Landleaguers, he may after all make the best bargain by so far submitting himself to his shorn landlord. ”

“ A landlord leases his sites in the first instance to builders, for periods of great length. When the building leases fall in, and the houses become the landlord's direct property, it is almost invariably an object with him to lease them for periods, shorter indeed than the original building lease, but always of considerable length. As long as houses are in the hands of a building lessee, or his representatives, the ground landlord can derive no profit from them beyond the rent reserved in the lease, and can exercise no control over them outside the covenants contained in that document. ”

“ Some landlords, instead of a rent in money, require a rent in kind, in corn, cattle, poultry, wine, oil, &c.; others, again, require a rent in service. Such rents are always more hurtful to the tenant than beneficial to the landlord. ”

“ Old Jack stood on the pavement of Cornhill, and stared at the traffic. When he remembered that Mrs. Randall was by his side, he said, "Well, mother, we done it;" and his wife replied, "Yus, fa', you're a lan'lord now." Hereat he chuckled and began to walk eastward. For to be a landlord is the ultimate dignity. There is no trouble, no anxiety in the world if you are a landlord; and there is no work. You just [Pg 223] walk round on Monday mornings (or maybe you even drive in a trap) , and you collect your rents: eight and six, or nine shillings, or ten shillings, as the case may be. ”