Tenant at will

“ 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. ”

“ In the present case, the proof shows no forcible entry, no forcible detainer, no holding over of a tenant of demised premises. These are the only cases contemplated in this statute in which this summary process will lie. Although, in a loose sense, a mortgagor in possession is said to be tenant at will of the mortgagee, yet he is not within the reason or the letter of Rev. St. c. 104, § 2. He is not lessee, or holding under a lessee, or holding demised premises without right, after the determination of the lease. ”

“ With respect to subletting, a tenant-at-will cannot subdivide his farm so easily as a tenant by lease, and such never takes place on a well-regulated estate; but a tenant by lease most frequently subdivides by his last will and testament amongst his children, thereby leaving all not sufficient land to support their families, and in a short time none can pay their rent, consequently the landlord loses his rent and they lose their farms."—Ibid. ”

“ But if one tenant in common enters into actual and exclusive possession of the land, taking the rents and profits to his own use, and openly assert his own exclusive property in the lands, and deny the title of any other, it will be considered as an adverse possession by him, and those claiming under him, and an ouster of the other claimants. ”

“ It gives the tenant the right to undertake, on his farm, under pretence of improvements, any work he chooses to attempt, and imposes upon the landlord the obligation to repay him the whole value, if at the end of the lease, he will not renew it at the same rent, or he wishes to send away the tenant. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Trinity Church, on page cited It is said: 'Although a man may hold possession rightfully as a tenant in common, and the presumption is that he does so, still the contrary may be shown; and if his conduct be such as to satisfy the mind that he means to hold out his co-tenants, and he does in fact exclude them, this is an ouster, his possession is adverse, and the statute will apply as fully as if he never had any right to claim as a tenant in common.' See the preceding pages, where the facts evincing the claim of title of the defendant are commented on. ”

“ Under early statutes of the state of New York, providing that any tenant at will, or at sufferance, or for years, holding over, without permission of his landlord, after the expiration of his term, or after default in the payment of rent, might be removed from the possession upon a proceeding commenced by the landlord before a justice of the peace, it was constantly held by the supreme court of the state that a m rtgagee could not maintain this process against a mortgagor in possession ”

“ Since many events may occur which will absolve the tenant from further obligation for rent, the claim is said to be too contingent, both because of the uncertainty at the date of adjudication that the lessor will re-enter, and the doubt as to his suffering loss of rent if he should re-enter. ”

“ On the point directly before us he observes: 'That the attornment will not affect the title of the lessor so long as he has a right to consider the person holding possession as his tenant. But as he has a right to punish the acts of his tenant in disavowing the tenure by proceeding to eject him, notwithstanding his lease; if he will not proceed for the forfeiture, he has no right to affect the rights of third persons on the ground that the possession was destroyed, and there must be a limitation to this as well as every other demand. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The tenant must be guided by the principles of ordinary prudence, and make such a deduction from his offer as he considers will compensate him for the loss which his crop may sustain through the agency of the game. If he neglects to do this, he has no reasonable ground for murmuring—if he does it, he is perfectly safe. Such is the plain simple nature of the case, from which one would think it difficult to extract any clamant grievance, at least between the landlord and the tenant. ”

“ So Domat says: 'If the tenant is expelled by the act of the sovereign, by vis major, or by some other accident, or if the property is destroyed by an inundation, by an earthquake, or other event, the lessor, who was bound to give the property, cannot demand the rent, and will be bound to restore so much of it as he has received, but without any other damages; for no one ought to answer for accidents.' Droit Civil, pt. ”

“ 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 land, on the expiration of the tenancy, becomes at common law the absolute property of the landlord, no matter how it may have been altered or improved during the occupation. In certain cases, however, the law has discriminated between the contending claims of landlord and tenant. ”

“ Several tenants are anxious [pg 275] for it, and would gladly take it, but they dare not The great evicted will neither sell any tenant-right he may have, nor pay his arrears and costs, nor give up the place to another tenant. To put Property Defence men on the holding would cost the landlord £2, 10s. a week, and do him no great good, as the evicted man “holds the fort,” being established in a house which he occupies on an adjoining property, and for which presumably he pays his rent. ”

“ No tenant is to stop any common way nor turn aside a beck. Penalty 6s. 8d.
For the tenants.
1. Any tenant, lawfully seised of a messuage or tenement in fee to him and his heirs according to the custom of the manor, might and may lawfully give or sell the same by writing, and that the steward or his deputy ought to be made privy to it at or before next court under penalty of 20s.
The tenant may without the privity of the steward give his tenement in writing by his last will to which of his sons he thinks best, or any other person. ”

“ The stranger coming in under such an arrangement, held by a special tenure, yet if he remained during the time of three lords he became thereby naturalized. If the unnaturalized tenant withdrew of his own will from the land he was obliged to leave all his improvements behind; but if he was ejected he was entitled to get their full value. Those who were immediate tenants of the chief, or of the church, were debarred this privilege of tenant-right, and if unable to keep their holdings were obliged to surrender them unreservedly to the church or the chief. ”

“ The result will not be changed if we view the case on the assumption that possession by one ineligible, when it is the product of agreement, may be criminal as to the tenant who holds with guilty knowledge, though innocent as to the landlord who believes that all is lawful. ”

“ Tenant right is assignable, and will pass under an assignment of “all the estate and interest” of the outgoing tenant in the farm. But, with the exceptions noted, the land in its improved condition passes over at common law to the landlord. The tenant may have added to its value by buildings, by labour applied to the land, or by the use of fertilizing manures, but, whatever be the amount of the additional value, he is not entitled to any compensation whatever. ”

“ 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. ”

“ No notice need be given to landlord, and no consent is required from landlord, before tenant executes any improvement under this class.
Tenants who can now claim compensation under a custom.Tenants under a custom which now enables them to claim against an incoming tenant for manures, &c., should consider Sec. 60 before studying those others relating to this class. Tenants under a custom will then learn, that if they adopt this Act they will lose none of their present rights against an incoming tenant; but they will gain against a landlord rights which they never before have had. ”

“ If the landlord acts without such cause, the tenant will be entitled to damages against him at the discretion of the court, exclusive of compensation for improvements and reclamation of land. The maximum measure of damages for wanton ejectment is set down in the bill as follows:
In any case the tenant upon ejectment will be entitled to compensation for improvements, from which arrears of rent may be deducted. ”

“ It is urged that the defendants are estopped by the lease from disputing the capacity of the plaintiffs to take the land. A tenant, it is well said, is estopped to deny the title of his landlord; but the defendants are not tenants to the society. They have shown no title but possession, nor are they bound to exhibit any other, until some title is exhibited by the plaintiffs. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The intention of the act of limitations being to quiet the possession of lands, it would be curcious if a tenant for ninety-nine years, attorning to a person insisting he was entitled, and disavowing tenure to the knowledge of his former landlord, should protect the title of the original lessor for the term of ninety-nine years. ”

“ A tenant is not entitled, without the landlord’s consent, to change the character of the subjects demised, and, except under an agricultural lease, he is bound to quit the premises on the expiration of the lease. ”

“ 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. ”

“ These practices were of a character well calculated to deceive, for it is easy to see that fair-minded men, knowing the owner of the property to be absent, would be inclined to put faith in the declarations of his tenant, that if he purchased, it was on account of his landlord, whose interests he wished to protect, and would be disinclined to interfere with the arrangement. ”

“ This estate is of an amphibious nature, partaking partly of an estate-tail, and partly of an estate for life. The tenant is, in truth, only tenant for life, but with many of the privileges of a tenant in tail; as, not to be punishable for waste, &c [26] : or, he is tenant in tail, with many of the restrictions of a tenant for life; as, to forfeit his estate if he alienes it in fee-simple [27] : whereas such alienation by tenant in tail, though voidable by the issue, is no forfeiture of the estate to the reversioner; who is not concerned in interest, till all possibility of issue be extinct. ”

“ The tenant takes an estate in the premises hired, and persons who occupy by his permission, or as members of his family, cannot be considered as occupying by the invitation of the landlord, so as to create a greater liability on the part of the landlord to them than to the tenant. ”

“ 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. ”