Roman Law

ROMAN LAW.) In English law 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 agree ment for a lease. All kinds of interests and property, whether corporeal, such as lands or buildings, or incorporeal, such as rights of common or of way, may be let. The Benefices Act, 1898, how ever, now prohibits the grant of a lease of an advowson. Titles of honour, offices of trust or relating to the administration of justice, and pensions granted by the Crown for military services are also inalienable. Generally speaking, any person may grant or take a lease. But there are a number of common law and statutory qualifications and exceptions. (See ALIEN ; CONVICT ; CORPORA TION ; INFANT; INSANITY.) Powers of granting building and other leases have been conferred by modern legislation on municipal corporations and other local authorities.

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 avail able against the reversioner or remainder man. The subtenant's interest will expire with the interest of the person who created it.

The Letting.

Whether a particular instrument is a lease, or an agreement for a lease, or a bare licence, is a question the answer to which depends to a large extent on the circumstances of indi vidual cases ; and the only general rule is that in a lease there must be an expression of intention on the part of the lessor to convey, and of the lessee to accept, the exclusive possession of the thing let for the prescribed term and on the prescribed conditions. The landlord must not part with the whole of his interest, since, if he does so, the instrument is not a lease but an assignment. Where a tenant enters under an agreement for a lease and pays rent, the agreement will be regarded as a lease from year to year. At com mon law a lease for a term of years (other than a lease by a corporation) might be made by parol. But under the Law of Property Act, 1925, s. 54, superseding ss. I and 2 of the Statute of Frauds (1677), leases, except those the term of which does not exceed three years, and in which the reserved rent is equal to two thirds at least of the improved value of the premises, are required to be in writing signed by the parties or their lawfully authorized agents; and, under s. 52 of the same statute, a lease required by law to be in writing (unless made by deed) is void for the purpose of creating a legal estate.

Forms of Tenancy.

The following are the principal forms of tenancy: (i.) 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 per sons, and this constitutes a single estate. A tenant for life under a settlement has extensive powers of leasing under the Settled Land Act, 1925. He may lease the settled land, or any part of it, for any time not exceeding (a) in the case of a building lease, 99 years; (b) in the case of a mining lease, 6o years; (c) in the case of any other lease, 21 years. He may also grant either a lease of the surface of settled land, reserving the mines and minerals, or a lease of the minerals without the surface. (ii.) Tenancy for years, i.e., for a term of years.—This tenancy is created by an express contract between the parties and never by implication, as in the case of tenancy from year to year and tenancy at will. Here

the tenancy ends on the expiry of the prescribed term, without notice to quit or any other formality. (iii.) Tenancy from Year to Year.—This tenancy may be created by express agreement be tween the parties, or by implication as, e.g., where a person enters and pays rent under a lease for years, void either by law or by statute, or without any actual lease or agreement, or holds over after the determination of a lease whether for years or otherwise. In the absence of express agreement or custom or statutory pro vision (such as is made by the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1923), a tenancy from year to year is determinable on half a year's notice expiring at the end of some current year of the tenancy. 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 pro vision. 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. (iv.) Tenancies for Shorter Periods.—Closely associated with tenancies from year to year are various other tenancies for shorter periods than a year—weekly, monthly or quarterly. Questions of considerable importance frequently arise as to the notice necessary to terminate tenancies of this character. The issue is one of fact ; the date at which the rent is payable is a material circumstance, but it may be said generally that a calendar week's notice, given on the day corresponding to that on which the tenancy commenced, should be given to determine a weekly tenancy, a month's to determine a monthly tenancy and a quarter's to determine a quarterly tenancy. It is chiefly in con nection with the letting of lodgings, flats, etc., that tenancies of this class arise. (See FLAT, LODGER AND LODGINGS.) (V.) Ten ancy at Will.—A tenancy at will is one which endures at the will of the parties only, i.e., at the will of both, for if a demise be made to hold at the will of the lessor, the law implies that it is at the will of the lessee also and vice versa. Any signification of a desire to terminate the tenancy, whether expressed as "notice" or not, will bring it to an end. This form of tenancy, like tenancy from year to year, may be created 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. (vi.) Tenancy at Sufferance.—A ten ant who comes into possession by a lawful demise, but "holds over" or continues in possession after his estate is ended, is said to be a "tenant at sufferance." Properly speaking, tenancy at suf ferance is not a tenancy at all, inasmuch as if the landlord ac quiesces in it, it becomes a tenancy at will; and it is to be regarded merely as a legal fiction which prevented the rightful owner from treating the tenant as a trespasser until he had himself made an actual entry on or had brought an action to recover the land. 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.