Tenancy

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And it is to be understood, that the nature of joint-tenancy is, that he that surviveth shall have solely the entire tenancy, according to such estate as he hath, ..." "Tenants in common are they that have lands or tenements in fee-simple, fee-tail, or for term of life, etc., the which have such lands and tenements by several title, and not by joint title, and neither of them knoweth thereof his severalty, but they ought by the law to occupy such lands or tenements in common pro indiviso, to take the profits in common. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ An agriculturist in England or America would certainly think himself singularly fortunate if a farm were declared his property without any condition except the yearly payment of a rent not even amounting to one-fourth of that usually charged for the mere privilege of tenancy. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ Apparently the same implied warranty of fitness for habitation at the commencement of the tenancy which exists in the case of furnished lodgings (see Lodger and Lodgings) exists also in the case of boarding-houses; and the guest in a boarding-house, like a lodger, is entitled to all the usual and necessary conveniences of a dwelling-house. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A tenant at will, who possesses land sufficient to maintain his family for little more than a quit-rent, is as dependent upon the proprietor as any servant or retainer whatever, and must obey him with as little reserve. Such a proprietor, as he feeds his servants and retainers at his own house, so he feeds his tenants at their houses. ”

“ Every tenant who paid 20s. a year rent, was to furnish a man harnessed for the King's service. Every old tenant paid a gressom of one year's rent on the death of the lord, and every new tenant pays two years' rent to the next heir. The widow has one-third of the tenement during her chaste widowhood. If a tenement is not presented within a year and a day after the death of the tenant, or if it be sold, set, or let without paying the fine, or gressom, for a year and a day, then the lord, if there be not good distress upon the grounds, may seize such tenement into his hands as a forfeiture, &c. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The landlord had suffered from the extravagance of his last tenant, and he had no compassion for the struggles of his successor; he put in an execution. As we passed one morning, the broker’s men were removing the little furniture there was in the house, and a newly-posted bill informed us it was again ‘To Let.’ What became of the last tenant we never could learn; we believe the girl is past all suffering, and beyond all sorrow. God help her! We hope she is. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A half-living consisted of four or five "nominal acres" in each of the common fields, with common rights upon the meadow, common fields and common down. A whole living was twice as large. The tenants elected two "viewers" and other officers, and the whole estate was a little picture of the times when landlord and tenant had equally well-defined rights and duties. Now that the tenant is only an agricultural labourer he has no right to anything but a bed in the Union in which to die. ”

“ I will act as you desire, Sir Ralph, but I venture to observe that it may be a hardship to some of them if we act according to the strict letter of the law. The tenant may, from unforeseen circumstances, have got into difficulties, or he may have expended a considerable amount on his farm, and thus increased its value, or he may have a large family, and find it a hard matter to make the two ends meet, or he himself, or his wife or children, may have been suffering from sickness. ”

“ 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. ”

“ No man is in law the absolute owner of lands. He can only hold an estate in them.” That is, the notion of tenure, of holding by a tenant from a lord, prevails. The last lord of all from whom all land was ultimately held was the king. Persons holding directly from the king and granting to others were the king’s tenants in capite, and were the mesne lords of their tenants. ”

“ And it is not uncommon for a tenant without a lease to sell the bare privilege of occupancy or possession of his farm without any visible sign of improvement having been made by him, at from ten to sixteen, up to twenty and even forty years' purchase of the rent. ”

“ They are held by weekly tenure, and, during eighteen years, I have not lost a week’s rent from voids; the men who would otherwise shift their dwelling when they change workshops, prefer to remain and walk some distance rather than lose their little garden crops; and when obliged to leave, have usually found me another tenant, a friend who has paid them a small tenant-right premium for what is left in the garden, or for the privilege of getting a house with such a garden. ”

“ There are only two classes of people, the very rich and the very poor, the landlords and the{503} tenants. On each estate are a number of cottages with garden patches around them, which are occupied by the tenants, and in payment for which the landlord is entitled to so many days’ labor each year at his option. Should more labor than is due be required of the tenant, he is paid for it, not in money, but in orders upon the supply store or commissary of the estate, where he can get clothing or food or rum—especially rum. ”