TUTE OF FRAUDS.
A forfeiture of a lease may arise either by a breach by the tenant of one of those conditions which are implied by or at tached to the relatiou of IaLtuoru a, tenant, as where a tenant disclaims or impugns the title of his landlord by ac knowledging, for instance, the right of property to be vested in a stranger, or asserts a claim to it himself, or by a breach of a condition which is expressly introduced into the lease, the breach of which is to be attended with a forfeiture of the tenancy, as a conditicarto pay rent on a particular day, to cultivate in a par ticular manner, &c. To this head may be referred provisoes in a lease for re entry by the landlord on the doing or failure in doing of certain acts by the te nant, such as the commission of waste, the failure to repair, &c. The courts are said to be unfavourable to forfeitures; therefore, when the landlord has notice of an act of forfeiture, or an act which en titles him to re-enter, he must imme diately proceed in such a way as to show that he intends to avail himself of his strict legal right. If after the commis sion of the act he does anything which amounts to a recognition of the tenancy, as by the acceptance of rent subsequently due, he will have waived his right to insist upon the forfeiture.
A yearly tenancy, where no period of notice is agreed on, must be determined by notice to quit at the expiration of the current year, given six months previ dusly. In the case of lodgings, the time, when less than a year, for which they are taken, will be the time for which a notice is necessary. Thus lodgings taken by the month or week require a month's or week's notice.
The notice to quit need not be in writing, though, from the greater facility of proving it, a written notice is always better. It should distinctly describe the premises, be positive in its announce ment of an intention to quit or require possession, be signed by the party giving it, and served personally upon the party to be affected by it.
If a tenant, after having given notice to quit, continues to occupy, he is liable to pay double rent. If he does so, no fresh notice is necessary. If he continues to occupy after the landlord has given him notice, he is liable to pay double value for the premises.
At tit,. expicatluil ut the lead', the tenant is bound to deliver up possession of the premises; hut if either by special agreement or by the custom of the country the tenant is entitled to the crops still standing on the land, and which are called away-going crops, he may enter for the purpose of gathering them, and also use the barns and stables for the purpose of threshing them. The in-com
ing tenant may also enter during the tenancy of the preceding tenant to plough and prepare the land.
As to the recovery of rent by action see RENT.
If the tenant refuses to deliver the pos session of the land, the landlord may an action of ejectment to recover it, add the process is simplified by 4 Geo. 11. c. 28. [RENT, p. 637.] By the 11 Geo. 11. c. t9, and 57 Geo. III. C. 52, if a tenant, under any lease or agreement, written or verbal, though without a clause of re-entry, of lands at a rack-rent, or rent of three-fburths the yearly value, shall be in arrear for half a year's rent, and shall leave the re mises deserted and without sufficient distress, any two justices of the county, at the request of the landlord, may go and visit the premises, and fix on the most conspicuous part of them notice in writing on what day, distant fourteen days at least, they will return again to view the premises; and if on the second day no one appears to pay the rent, and there is no sufficient distress on the pre mises, the justices may put the landlord into possession, and the lease shall become void. These proceedings are subject to appeal before the judges of assize for the same county at the ensuing assizes.
By 1 & 2 Viet. c. 74, where the interest of any tenant of land, &c., at will, or for a time less than seven years, liable to the payment either of no rent or a rent of less than 201. a year, shall have ended or been duly determined, and the tenant shall refuse to quit, the landlord may serve him with a notice, a form for which is given in the act, to appear before a justice for the county ; and if he fails to show satisfactory cause why he should not give up possession, the justices, on proof of the tenancy and of the expiration of it, may give possession to the landlord. If the landlord was not at the time of the proceedings lawfully entitled to posses sion, he will be liable to an action of trespass at the suit of the tenant, notwith standing the act of parliament.
(Woodfall's Landlord and Tenant ; Coote's Landlord and Tenant.)