Tenancy at will

“ In many cases the parties may be prepared to act upon and abide by such agreement, but strictly speaking, if no application to the Court be made for its specific performance, or for some reason or other such application is not granted, there will only be a tenancy at will if the tenant has merely entered into possession, or a tenancy from year to year, if rent has been paid. ”

“ A tenancy may also be determined by merger, i.e. where a greater and a less estate coincide and meet in one and the same person, without any intermediate estate, as, for instance, when a tenant for years obtains the fee simple. There may also be a surrender, either voluntary or by operation of law, which will determine a tenancy, as, for example, when a tenant is party to some act, the validity of which he is legally estopped from denying and which would not have been valid had the tenancy continued to exist. ”

“ This estate is therefore to be carefully distinguished from tenancy in common, when the co-tenants have each a separate interest which on death passes to the heirs and not to the surviving tenants. When several take an estate together any words or facts implying severance will prevent the tenancy from being construed as joint. ”

“ Where there is no express stipulation creating a yearly tenancy, if the parties have contracted that the tenant may be dispossessed by a notice given at any time, effect will be given to this provision. The common law doctrine of a six months’ notice being required to terminate a tenancy from year to year of a corporeal hereditament, does not apply to an incorporeal hereditament such as a right to shoot. ”

“ She might survive and thereby obtain a complete fee to the property with attendant rights of possession and disposition by will or otherwise. Until the death of her co-tenant, the wife could have severed the joint tenancy and thus have escaped the application of the estate tax of which she complains. Upon the death of her co-tenant she for the first time became possessed of the sole right to sell the entire property without risk of loss which might have resulted from partition or separate sale of her interest while decedent lived. ”

“ It is hardly to be expected, however, that tenant occupancy will give the man as close moral contact with the earth and its materials as will ownership; yet a well-developed tenancy is better than absentee farming by persons who live in town and run the farm by temporary hired help. The tenancy in the United States is partly a preliminary stage to ownership: if we can fulfil the moral obligation to society in the conserving of fertility and other natural resources, tenancy may be considered as a means to an end. Persons [Pg 53] who work the land should have the privilege of owning it. ”

“ If there was between him and the defendant an existing tenancy at the time it was brought, he had no right of entry. The lessee cannot be a trespasser during the existence of the lease, and cannot be turned out till its termination. At the end of a definite term the lessor has his election to consider the lessee a trespasser and to enter on him by ejectment; but if he suffers him to remain in possession, he becomes a tenant at will, or from year to year, and in either case is entitled to a notice to quit before the lessor can eject him. ”

“ But if one joint tenant bargains and sells all the lands, and before enrollment the other dies, his part shall survive, for the freehold not being out of him the jointure remains, and though afterwards the deed is enrolled, yet only a moiety shall pass, for the enrollment by relation cannot make the grant of any better effect than it would have been if it had taken effect immediately.' [3]
It is laid down in the same authorities that if one joint tenant agree to alien, but do not, and die, this will not sever the joint tenancy, nor bind the survivor. ”

“ The civil law does not recognize the common-law distinction between joint tenancy and tenancy in common. A gift to two persons jointly, if it takes effect, inures to their equal benefit without any right of survivorship. ”

“ Cases may, indeed, be conceived in which it would produce a limited effect; as, for example, if the heir should hold against tenant in dower, or by the curtesy. But there is nothing there to bar but the tenancy in dower or curtesy. If there was, the bar would extend to it. In our case, the whole fee is against the possession by wrong, and his possession is against the whole fee. His declarations, that he claimed only a life estate, did not give him a life estate. ”

“ One really had the possession of such an estate very much as if it were one’s own, so that a third party could not claim it; just like the tenant at will, from whom the landlord may under certain conditions take his farm, but who enjoys perfect protection against any one else. ”

“ The tenant must have a fixed tenure, and not be liable to disturbance so long as he paid the rent settled by the proposed valuation. If he chose to quit, or if he could not pay his rent, he must have the right to the market value of his tenancy. ”

“ Hence arose copyholds for life. Again, in other manors a much greater degree of liberality was shown by the lords; and on the death of a tenant, the lord permitted his eldest son, or indeed sometimes all his sons, or sometimes the youngest only, and afterwards other relations to succeed him by way of heirship; for which privilege, however, the payment of a fine was usually required on the admittance of the heir to the tenancy. ”

“ He cannot change the character of the tenure by his own act merely, so as to enable himself to hold against his landlord, who reposes under the security of the tenancy, believing the possession of the tenant to be his own, held under his title, and ready to be surrendered by its termination, by the lapse of time, or demand of possession. The same principle applies to mortgagor and mortgagee, trustee and cestuique trust, and generally to all cases where one man obtains possession of real estate belonging to another, by a recognition of his title. ”

“ On the contrary, if we concede, as in the present case, that the husband had acquired a tenancy by the curtesy in her property before such enactment, it is eminently wise and just that no other person should afterwards acquire such an interest in it as to disturb the joint possession of it, and turn the family resulting from the marriage out, that it may go to pay his debts. ”

“ A mortgagee, a direct purchaser from a tenant, or one who buys his right at a sheriff's sale, assumes his relations to the landlord with all their legal consequences, and they are as much estopped from denying the tenancy. If no length of time would protect a possession originally acquired under a lease, it would be productive of evils truly alarming, and we must be convinced beyond a doubt that the law is so settled before we could give our sanction to such a doctrine. ”

“ The Distress for Rent Act 1737, however, enables a landlord to recover double rent from a tenant who holds over after having himself given notice to quit; while another statute in the reign of George II.—the Landlord and Tenant Act 1730—makes a tenant who holds over after receiving a notice from his landlord liable to the extent of double the value of the premises. There is no tenancy by sufferance against the crown. ”

“ But if the true object of our land-system is to make the most out of the soil, then the farmer must be encouraged to do his very best by having the right to sell his tenancy at the best price he can get for it. At the same time we should protect the landlord from having an unsuitable tenant thrust upon him, by giving him the right of appealing to the Land Court, where the proposed incoming tenant could be put upon his oath as to his means, his character, and his qualifications. ”

“ In the course of the opinion, discussing and overruling a further contention, based upon the common law, that Mabie and wife held the land in question as joint tenants with a right of survivorship, the court said (p. 659, Pac. p. 173) : 'The act of 1869 did not fix the status of such property, other than to declare it to be common property, and made no provision for its descent. Nor was there at that time, nor for some time thereafter, any express legislative recognition of estates in joint tenancy. ”

“ When once the tenant is summoned into court, either upon a writ of right patent or a writ of right close, the same exceptions and pleadings in abatement or in bar, and the same defence upon the merits, equally applies in a suit upon the one as the other. Nontenure, joint tenancy, sole tenancy, and several tenancy, are good pleas in abatement, wherever they apply to any parcel of the land demanded of any particular tenant or tenants. ”

“ As in every feudal grant there were two estates, the absolute propriety in the lord, a qualified property, namely, the possession and profits, in the tenant; now that they were prohibited from taking the real tenancy, they cunningly devised a means of subdividing the tenancy, by separating the profits from the possession. When, therefore, a man had a mind to alienate to the church, as he could not do it directly, he infeoffed a person to the use of such a monastery. ”

“ It is not necessary to adduce instances to prove the liability of the tenant at will or lessee to eviction, because the nature of their interest makes it obvious that they could not claim to have complete legal security. ”

“ A tenant is not responsible, under such a covenant, for deterioration due to diminution in value caused by lapse of time or by the elements. Where there is an unqualified covenant to repair, and the premises during the tenancy are burnt down, or destroyed by some other inevitable calamity, the tenant is bound to rebuild and restore them at his own expense, even although the landlord has taken out a policy on his own account and been paid by the insurance company in respect of it. ”

“ The social purpose of the tenancy by the entirety seems to be to solidity the marital status by encouraging and protecting home ownership and to protect and insulate the institution of marriage from the onslaught of creditors. ”

“ If a landlord without good cause, and for reasons inconsistent with good estate management, terminates a tenancy by notice to quit; or refuses to grant a renewal of the tenancy if so requested at least one year before the expiration thereof; or if a tenant quits his holding in consequence of a demand by the landlord for an increased rent, such demand being due to an increased value in the holding owing to improvements done by the tenant; in either of such events the tenant is entitled to compensation. ”

“ That every such agricultural tenant, whether he has had a fair rent fixed or not, may sell his tenancy to the highest bidder whenever he desires to leave; and that, if he be evicted, he has the right either to redeem within six months, or to sell his tenancy within the same period to a purchaser, who can likewise redeem, and thus acquire all the privileges of the tenant. ”

“ By the twelfth section of the act it is provided, that instead of the right to seize the tenant's personal chattels for rent in arrear, the landlord shall have a tacit lien upon such chattels situated on the premises as are subject to execution for debt, to commence with the tenancy and continue for three months after the rent is due. ”

“ If these words had occurred in a will devising an estate for years, or for life, or in fee, in express terms, they would not, probably, have been thought to have any distinct auxiliary signification, but to be merely a more full annunciation of what the law would imply. Occurring in a clause where the estate is undefined, they are supposed to have a peculiar force; so that, 'freely to possess and enjoy,' must mean to possess and enjoy without any limitation or restriction as to estate or right. The argument is, that a tenant for life is restricted in many respects. ”

“ An estate by the entirety is held by the husband and wife in single ownership, by a single title. They do not take by moieties, but both and each take the whole estate, that is to say, the entirety. The tenancy results from the common-law principle of marital unity ”

“ The farmer should have the right of selling his tenancy to anyone whom he chooses, subject to the landlord's right to urge any objection to the new tenant before the District Land Court. The new tenant to hold on the same terms as the old, that is, not to be ejected or to have his rent raised without the sanction of the Court. ”

“ When a lease is about to expire a difficult question sometimes arises, what can the tenant take away with him? Of course he can remove all his furniture and the things that can be separated without injury to the premises, but during his tenancy, he may have added things possessing a more permanent nature, called fixtures, these he cannot remove. ”

“ In the case of tenants in common there is still greater liberty. There is said to be a distinction between those holding under a will or through descent and those holding under independent conveyance. ”

“ Tenants are never allowed to deny the title of their landlord, nor set up a title against him, acquired by the tenant during the tenancy, which is hostile in its character to that which he acknowledged in accepting the demise; the rule being that whenever the possession is acquired under any species of tenancy, whether the action be assumpsit, debt, covenant, or ejectment, the tenant is estopped from denying the title of the landlord. ”