LEASEHOLD. In English law, the technical -description of an estate for years. It arises upon a lease, and constitutes a valid title, or estate, in the premises for the period described. It may be for any period of time, however brief or long. whether for a week or for a thousand years, and is subject to no restriction excepting that the limit of its duration shall be definitely fixed. If a conveyance of land be indefinite it is not a leasehold. even though it be measured in years.
Owing to the circumstances of its origin, the leasehold estate is classified as personal property, which, upon the death of the tenant, or lease holder, passes to his executor or administrator, and not, like real property. to his heir. Ancient ly such an interest was not regarded as property at all (the feudal conception of estates in land being confined to the class of interests known as freeholds). lint as a mere contract right, enforce able only against the lessor or owner of the land, and against him only by an action for dam ages. But in the course of time, partly as the result of statutes and partly through a growing recognition of the importance of leasehold inter ests, the lessee came to be protected by a va riety of actions, of which the action of ejectment was the most important, whereby he might re cover the land itself either from his lessor or from any other intruder. The right of the lessee
thus became a true estate in the land, strictly analogous to the freehold estates previously rec ognized. but it was now too late to secure its recognition as inheritable real property. As the right of action for breach of contract. which was all that the lessee formerly had, passed to his ex Ninth•, so the leasehold estate which developed out of that contract right has continued to do to the present time. It is distinguished from other personal property by the phrase 'chattel real.' This contract origin of the leasehold is respon sible, also. for some of the advantages which it enjoys over the freehold. Not only may it be created and assigned with less difficulty and for mality. as by parol or. at the most, by a simple writing, while a deed is requisite to the creation or transfer of a freehold: but it has always been capable of being created so as to take effect at a future time, which, in the case of freeholds, was not possible at the common law.
Technically, the proper mode of creating an estate for years is by a lease, or demise. fol lowed by the entry of the lessee. Any form of words showing the intention to create the relation of landlord and tenant will suffice. Sec ESTATE; FREEIIOLD; LANDLORD AND TENANT; LEASE.