YEARS, estate for. Tenant for term of years is, where a man letteth lands or te nements to another, for a certain term of years agreed upon between the lessor and lessee ; and when the lessee entereth by force of the lease, then lie is tenant for term of years.
If tenements be let to a man for term of half a year, or for a quarter of a year, or any less time, this lessee is respected as tenant for years, and is styled so in some legal proceedings, a year being the shortest term which the law in this case takes notice of. .
Generally, every estate which must ex pire at a period certain and prefixed, by whatever words created, is an estate for years, and therefore this estate is fre quently called a term, because its duration or continuance is bounded, limited, and determined. For every such estate must have a certain beginning and certain end. If no day of commencement be named in the creation of this estate, it begins from the making or delivery of the lease. A lease for so many years as such an one shall live, is void from the beginning, for it is neither certain, nor can it ever be re duced to a certainty, during the continu ance of the lease. And the same doc trine holds, if a parson make a lease of his glebe for so many years as he shall continue parson of such a church, for this is still more uncertain. But a lease for twenty or more years, if the parson shall so long live, or if he shall so long con tinue parson, is good ; for there is a cer tain period fixed, beyond which it cannot last, though it may determine sooner,.on
the parson's death, or his ceasing to be parson there.
An estate for years, though never so many, is inferior to an estate for life. For as estate for life, though it be only for the life of another person, is a freehold; but an estate, though it be for a thousand years, is only a chattel, and reckoned part of the personal estate. For no estate of freehold can commence in future, be cause it cannot be created at common law without livery of seisin, or corporal possession of the land ; and corporal pos session cannot he given of an estate now, which is not to commence now, but here after. And because no livery of seisin is necessary for a lease for years, such a les see is not said to be seised, or to have true legal seisin of the lands. Nor, in deed, cloth the bare lease vest any estate in the lessee, but only gives him a right of entry on the tenement, which right is called his interest in the term ; but when he has actually so entered, and thereby accepted the grant, the estate is then, and not before, vested in him, and he is pos sessed, not properly of the land, but of the term of years, the possession or sei sin of the land remaining still in him who has the freehold.