LEASE. The act or instrument whereby any estate in land less than a fee is created. In its most extended sense the term thus includes the conveyance of a life estate. as well as the parol agreement which results in a tenancy at will or from year to year. :More frequently, however, it is applied to the writing (not usually a deed) or the parol declaration creating an estate for years, or leasehold, as it is technically called. Formerly all leases, excepting leases for life (which re quired the same ceremonial as was requisite for the conveyance of a fee). were effected parol. But the Statute of Frauds, passed in the twenty ninth year of Charles IL, made a writing essential to the validity of all leases for terms exceeding three years. This provision has in many of the United States been modified by statutes requiring leases for more than one veal- to be in writing.
The immediate effect of a lease for years is to vest in the lessee an interest in the land, kno*n technically as an int( r,sse has many of the characteristic, of a leasehold estate, but which requires the entry of the lessee upon the land to make his title as tenant• complete. Once in possession the lessee becomes the vir tual owner of the premises for the period of his lease; he has a true estate in the land. which he can defend against the lessor as well as against the rest of the world, and which is limited only by the rules of law governing the relations of landlord and tenant.
As thus understood. a lease is a simple con veyance having no other effect than the creation of the bare property relation of landlord and tenant. The instrument by which the lease is effected may, however, include a variety of eol lateral agreements on the part of the lessor or the lessee, or both, creating contract relation, be tween them in addition to the property relations.
Of this nature are the usual stipulations of the lessee to pay a fixed rent, to keep the premises in repair, to make no assignment of the lease, or, on the part of the lessor, to grant a renewal of the lease, to pay for improvements at the expira tion of the term, and the like. These agreements, if the instrument be under seal. become incorpo rated in the leasehold estate and, as the expres sion is, run with the land. binding successors of the lessor and lessee respectively as well as the original parties to the transaction.
It should be noticed, however. that a formal and valid lease is not necessary in all cases to create time relation of landlord and tenant. This may arise, as a tenancy at will or from year to year. by the entry of a tenant under a void lease, or, like a tenancy at sufferance, by the continued occupation without authority of a tenant whose lawful term has expired. Nor is it necessary that a lease shall specify all the obligations of the parties thereto. The most important of these, as the obligation of the landlord to defend his ten ant's title, and the tenant's liability for waste and repairs. are the legal incidents of the relation of landlord and tenant, and exist without refer ence to the terms of the lease. See ESTATE: LEASEnOLD: LANDLORD AND TENANT, and consult the authorities referred to under the last of these, and under REAL PROPERTY,