Tenancy in common

“ In addition, there is sufficient substantial similarity between joint tenancies and tenancies by the entirety to have moved Congress to treat them alike for purposes of taxation. Practical necessities-and taxation is 'eminently practical' [14] -may well have led Congress to group different types of joint ownership together for taxation rather than to afford different treatment to each varying shade of such ownership. A tenancy by the entirety 'is essentially a joint tenancy, modified by the common law theory that husband and wife are one person.' [15] Only a fiction stands between the two. ”

“ Any species of permanent property that may be held, so as to create a tenancy, as lands, houses, rents, commons, an office, an advowson, a franchise, a right of common, a peerage, and the like; — called also free or frank tenements.
The thing held is a tenement, the possessor of it a "tenant," and the manner of possession is called "tenure."
Blackstone.
3. A dwelling house; a building for a habitation; also, an apartment, or suite of rooms, in a building, used by one family; often, a house erected to be rented. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This form of tenancy, like tenancy from year to year, may be treated either by express contract or by implication, as where premises are occupied with the consent of the owner, but without any express or implied agreement as to the duration of the tenancy, or where a house is lent rent free by one person to another. A tenancy at will is determined by either party alienating his interest as soon as such alienation comes to the knowledge of the other. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Where there is a yearly tenancy, that is to say, a tenancy from year to year, six months' notice, or in the case of an agricultural holding, twelve months' notice, expiring at the time of year at which the tenancy commenced. ”

“ Instead of paying his rent to the agent of Sir John and His Grace, he would pay it to an agent or deputy agent of the community. Stewards would be public officials instead of private ones, and tenancy the only land tenure. A state of things so ordered would be in perfect harmony with the moral law. Under it all men would be equally landlords; all men would be alike free to become tenants. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A person having an interest in land can, in general, create a valid interest only to the extent of that interest. Thus a tenant for years, or even from year to year only, may stand in his turn as landlord to another tenant. If he profess, however, to create a tenancy for a period longer than that to which his own interest extends, he does not thereby give to his tenant an interest available against the reversioner or remainder man. ”

“ The absolute and ultimate owner of all land is the crown, and the highest interest that a subject can hold therein—viz. an estate in fee simple—is only a tenancy. But this aspect of the law, under which the landlord, other than the crown, is himself always a tenant, falls beyond the scope of the present article, which is restricted to those holdings that arise from the hiring and leasing of land.
The legal relationship of landlord and tenant is constituted by a lease, or an agreement for a lease, by assignment, by attornment and by estoppel. And first of a lease and an agreement for a lease. ”

“ Where an annual rent is attached to the tenancy, in construction of law, a lease or agreement without limitation to any certain period is a lease from year to year, and both landlord and tenant are entitled to notice before the tenancy can be determined by the other. ”

“ His tenants vaguely recognised that his occupancy was a sentimental rather than a commercial speculation, and often generously lent themselves to the illusion by not paying their rent. Others treated their own tenancy as a joke—a quaint recreation born of the childlike familiarity of frontier intercourse. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Tenancy for Life.—A lease for life must be made by deed, and the term may be the life of the lessee and the life or lives of some other person or persons, and in the latter case either for their joint lives or for the life of the survivor; also for the lives of the lessee himself and of some other person or persons, and this constitutes a single estate. A tenant for life under a settlement has extensive powers of leasing under the Settled Land Act 1882. ”

“ A tenancy at sufferance is created by a tenant unlawfully retaining possession of the premises after the termination of his lease, without the consent of the landlord. If A rents B's house for one year, and at the expiration of the year A, without B's consent retains possession of the house, he is a tenant at sufferance. He is a trespasser, and may be ejected by B. Tenancies at will and at sufferance are estates in land. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A community that is made up largely of homes owned by their occupants is likely to be more prosperous and more progressive, and its citizens more loyal to it, than a community whose families are tenants.
THE TENANT AS A CITIZEN While all that has been said in the preceding paragraph is true, it must not be thought that tenancy is necessarily a bad thing in all cases, nor that a man who does not own his home cannot be a thoroughly good citizen. There are circumstances that make it necessary for many families to live in dwellings that they do not own. Tenancy may be a step toward home ownership. ”

“ No consideration will waive the payment of the rent, should the landlord insist on demanding it. Even should the house be burnt, blown, or fall down, the tenant is still liable for rent; and the tenancy can only be voidable by the proper notice to quit, the same as if the house remained in the most perfect condition.
1492. Demanding Rent
The landlord himself is the person most proper to demand rent ”

“ It may indeed be urged that the vice in the system would only blaze into life on a change of tenancy:—but changes of tenancy are continually taking place:—not only by the surrender of farms, but on the death of every occupant. His sons succeed:—they all consider they have an equal claim to the holding:—if permitted they subdivide it; [18] —if not the eldest has to pay the others their share of the father's beneficial interest; and the competition price is their standard of valuation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is evident that the arrangement belongs to the decisive development of the tenancy system as a regular alternative to that of farming by a steward for landlord’s own account. The desirable country-bred tenant would not be a man [991] of substantial capital, and things had to be made easy for him. It is not clear that a tenant bringing his own staff of slaves would have been welcomed as lessee: from the instance of the town-bred colonus just referred to it seems likely that he would not. ”

“ Landlords leasing real property in this District have a tacit lien upon such of the personal chattels of the tenant upon the premises as are subject to execution for debt, commencing with the tenancy, and continuing for three months after the rent is due, and until the termination of any action for such rent brought within said three months. ”

“ The rents of our lands, though they will be required from the tenantry as strictly as those of any other estates, will differ from common rents primarily in being lowered, instead of raised, in proportion to every improvement made by the tenant; secondly, in that they will be entirely used for the benefit of the tenantry themselves, or better culture of the estates, no money being ever taken by the landlords unless they earn it by their own personal labour. ”

“ It appears reasonable that those who are trying to acquire homes of their own and are making progress in that direction are as progressive and well-meaning citizens 68 LoN L. Swift as owners, but those who rent and do not accumulate money for themselves or secure good returns for their lessors are hardly worthy of the responsibility which they hold. Yet we must not lose sight of the fact that tenancy, in a large and ever increasing proportion, is not a desirable condition of tenure. ”

“ Such donees in frankmarriage are liable to no service but fealty; for a rent reserved thereon is void, until the fourth degree of consanguinity be past between the issues of the donor and donee [53] .
The incidents to a tenancy in tail, under the statute Westm. 2. are chiefly these [54] . 1. That a tenant in tail may commit waste on the estate-tail, by felling timber, pulling down houses, or the like, without being impeached, or called to account, for the same. 2. That the wife of the tenant in tail shall have her dower, or thirds, of the estate-tail. 3. ”

“ It is with these motives that a tenant should wish to occupy land; and it is the duty of every landlord who has his own interest truly at heart, to see that his land be not let at such a rent as will preclude the possibility of comfort or independence on the part of his tenantry. ”