Tenant (land)

“ If the land refuse her increase, why is the loss to fall on the tenant harder than on the owner? The owner, no doubt, has the law on his side; but the tenant understands very well that when the land is barren, the law will be barren also. ”

“ The tenantry had also their feasting and their dancing; but these had to pay for their amusement: each tenant, according to the custom of the manor, on the marriage of their lord, being obliged to bring an offering in proportion to the land which he held. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The tenant-right is more valuable than any compensation for improvement could be, though we have not many sales of farms, except by ill-doing tenants, who work the land till they have nearly exhausted it, and then sell it, and get a good deal of money upon it ”

“ 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. ”

“ This is true to a much less extent in the south. The tenant class there is composed mainly of shiftless whites who have definitely settled into what has come to be known as the 'tenant class' and of earth-butchering negroes. All the alertness of a landlord close at hand, who is himself strong-willed and a good farmer, is required to save land from deterioration after several years under such tenancy. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A lord may distrain land within his fee for rents, customs, or services due without naming the tenant, because of the existence of secret feoffments and leases made by their tenants to unknown persons. ”

“ In a village with a thousand acres belonging to it, there might be 100 or even 200 tenants farming the land. Each petty villager would have his acre or half acre, or four, or five, or ten, or twenty acres, as the case might be. He holds this by a 'tenant right,' and cannot be dispossessed as long as he pays his rent regularly. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Are we to have landlord right levelled down while tenant right is to be levelled up? We have yet to see it. It cannot, however, in fairness be denied that there are certain circumstances in which the tenants' third complaint above-mentioned is just and reasonable. While a tenant is strictly tied down under the conditions of his lease to a certain rotation of cropping, and various other regulations regarding his use of the land, the proprietor is left practically unfettered as to the extent of increase of game that he may allow to take place. ”

“ The tenant—the robbed farmer—for his own sake is compelled to go on and reclaim the land; he must raise something, for he has children who must be fed; and so he digs out the rocks, and cuts the bog, and makes good, arable land out of what was a barren and dreary waste. ”

“ We will recollect that the land is the landlord's, and let him have the benefit of it, but we will also recollect that the labor belongs to the tenant, and the tenant must have the value of his labor, not transitory and by the day, but permanently and by the year. ”

“ In course of time the use of a certain parcel of land by the tenant and a right to pasturage and so forth on the one hand, and the amount and kind of service required on the other, became definitely regulated by custom; and instead of the use of the land being a mere indulgence given to the tenant to be taken away from him on any whim of his lord, it became a definite right in the land which must be respected and could be pleaded at law. ”

“ Every demise between landlord and tenant in respect to matters in which the parties are silent, may be fairly open to explanation by the general usage and custom of the country or of the district where the land lies. Every person under such circumstances is supposed to be conusant of the custom, and to contract with a tacit reference to it. ”

“ The tenant must make a conscientious use of the land, according to the stipulations of the lease, and especially to keep it in a good state of cultivation. The tenant cannot alter the existing mode of cultivation or cropping to the damage of the land or the prejudice of a subsequent lease. He must conform with all local laws and customs as to paths, foot-bridges, ditches, dikes, hedges, roofs, aqueducts, etc., and must replace all implements and tools of small value which may have become worn out. The tenant cannot underlet without consent of landlord, regardless of duration of lease. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And it has been generally held, that the residence and possession of land for seven years by a tenant inures to the benefit of the landlord, so as to secure for him the protection of the act; and that this protection is not confined to the particular close upon which the claimant resides, but also extends to the entire parcel of land of which the legal possession has been maintained as a consequence of his actual possession and residence. ”

“ They have let some of the lower part go back to bog. The term of the original lease was for three lives. The fourth case is 208 acres, leased in the year 1784 to one tenant, at 5s per acre: the lessee apportioned it among his three sons; they among six; and it now has twenty-four families on it. Each of these farms should have made the fortune of the tenant, had he been possessed of common industry. I could state several similar instances; but these have occurred within the last few weeks. There was one case of a farm, about the same size, leased by my father to one tenant. ”

“ That every tenant or occupier who has for the past five years been in possession of any land, tenements, or hereditaments, shall be considered "a promoter of the undertaking within the meaning of the said recited act, and shall be entitled to purchase the lands which he has so occupied, 'either by agreement' 'or otherwise than by agreement,' as provided in the said recited act." ”

“ In the first place, the real incidence of the burden is determined in the long run only. The tenant of agricultural land may indeed enter into a lease like the tenant of urban land; and, like him, he may be unable to modify the terms of his lease so as to throw on the landlord the weight of any fresh burden, which may, contrary to his reasonable expectations, be levied. ”

“ Thus the tenant-farmer is willing to pay six, sometimes seven per cent. annually, for twenty years, for the increased capacity of production which drainage gives to the farm he cultivates. At the end of that period the Government is paid by the landlord, and the landlord by the tenant, and the tenant by his augmented crops for the whole original outlay upon the land. ”

“ The cases in which the landlord does any of these things are the exception. In most cases, whatever is done in the way of building or fencing is done by the tenant, and in the ordinary language of the country—dwelling-houses, farm buildings, and even the making of fences, are described by the general word improvements, which is thus employed to denote the general adjuncts to a farm, without which, in England or Scotland, no tenant would be found to rent it. ”

“ Acting on the idea that no man was more than a tenant, the state took the land from the occupier, as well as the tenant-in-fee, and gave it, not at their own price, but an assessed value, to the partners in a railway who traded for their mutual benefit, yet as they offered to convey travellers and goods at a quicker rate than on the ordinary roads, the state enabled them to acquire land by compulsion. ”

“ The owner of a manor was at first start the tenant of some wealthy and powerful nobleman, who, owning vast tracts of land, sublet it out in manors, which were after some generations bought outright, or looked upon almost as freehold. The tenant was the resident squire of the place, living on the land, and farming it with the assistance of his children and dependents. After a time the family grew up, the sons married and needed homes of their own. ”

“ It is clear that almost any tenant could get the money, if you bear in mind that though rents are so reduced, the most unimproving tenant can get from ten to twenty years' purchase for the good-will of his farm. ”

“ The result is that every tenant has been running down his land and letting it go out of cultivation, for the tenants know the commissioners value the ground as they find it, and a premium is thus, of course, put on neglecting the soil. ”

“ The tenant is, however, recognized as the creator and owner of any improvements he may erect upon the land, and, at the expiration of his lease, the government undertakes to pay him a fair compensation for such improvements, provided he has lived up to the letter of regulations respecting his tenure. ”

“ Complaint was also made of the uncertain tenures, the short leases, and "the usual method of late when lands are out of lease," which was "to invite and encourage all persons to make proposals, and set them to the highest bidder without regard to the tenants in possession." ”

“ It said that "religious men" could not acquire land from a tenant without the consent of the chief lord. The Statute of 1279 enacted that land transferred except on the original conditions of service should revert to the lord; or to the King himself, if the lord were "negligent," and did not resume possession within one year. ↑ "A feigned recovery was a device invented to break an English entail."—Chalmers' Encyclopædia. ↑ Statues were often named from the place where Parliament sat. ↑ "Tenant in fee simple is he which hath lands or tenements to hold to him and his heirs for ever."—Littleton. ”

“ HAving been tenant long to a rich Lord,
⁠Not thriving, I resolved to be bold,
⁠And make a suit unto him, to afford
A new small-rented lease, and cancell th' old.
In heaven at his manour I him sought:
⁠They told me there, that he was lately gone
⁠About some land, which he had deerly bought
Long since on earth, to take possession.
I straight return'd, and knowing his great birth,
⁠Sought him accordingly in great resorts;
⁠In cities, theatres, gardens, parks, and courts:
At length I heard a ragged noise and mirth
⁠Of theeves and murderers: there I him espied,
⁠Who straight, Your suit is granted, said, & died. ”

“ Land monopoly—in the hands of individuals, corporations or syndicates—is at bottom the prime cause of the inequalities which obtain; which desolate fertile acres turned over to vast ranches and into bonanza farms of a thousand acres, where not one family finds a habitation, where muscle and brain are supplanted by machinery, and the small farmer is swallowed up and turned into a tenant or slave. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”