ASSIGN E of a lease is the party to whom the whole interest of the lessee is transferred by assignment, which assign ment may be made without the privity or consent of the lessor, unless the lessee is restrained by the lease from assigning over. The assignee becomes liable to the lessor, from the date of the assignment, for the payment of the rent and perform ance of the covenants in the lease ; but such liability is limited to breaches of covenant during the existence of the as signee's interest, and may be got rid of by assigning over all his interest, and this even to an insolvent ; for his liability, arising only from privity of estate, that is, from the actual enjoyment of the pre mises leased, ceases with such enjoyment • whereas the lessee remains liable to the rent and covenants during the whole term. It results also from the circumstance of the assignee's liability arising from pri vity of estate, that he is not liable to mere personal covenants which the lessee may have made with the lessor (as for instance, to build on premises not demised, or to pay a sum of money in gross), but only to such covenants as run with the land, as for instance, covenants to pay rent, to repair, to reside on the demised premises, to leave part of the land in pasture, to insurepremises situate within the weekly bills of mortality, to build a new mill on the site of an old one, &c. The assignee, in order to become liable to the covenants, must take the whole estate and interest of the lessee; for if the smallest portion is reserved, he is merely an under-lessee, and not responsible to the original lessor.
The interest of the assignee must also be a legal, not merely an equitable interest ; and therefore if the lessee devise the pre mises leased to trustees in trust for A B, A B will not be chargeable as the assignee of the lessee's interest The interest must also be an interest in lands or tenements ; for if a lease is made of chattels (as for instance of sheep or cows, which sometimes happens), and the lessee cove cant for himself and his assigns to redeliver them, the assignee is not liable to the owner on this covenant ; for there is no privity between the assignee and the owner, such privity only existing where the subject of the demise is real estate. Wilmot, C. J., says, in Bally v. Wells, "The covenant in this case is not colla teral; but the parties, that is; the lessor and assignee, are total strangers to each other, without any line or thread to unite and tie them together, and to constitute that privity which must subsist between debtor and creditor to support an action." (Wilmot, 345.) The assiree may as his interest by operation of law, as well as by an actual assignment from the lessee, and therefore a tenant by elegit, who has purchased a lease under an ex ecution, is liable as assignee to the lessor in respect of his privity of estate.