Lease for years determinable. Grant without limitation of time. Such an interest cannot, before entry, be enlarged by a release from the lessor, on account of there being merely an interest, and not an actual estate in the lessee; but a release to the lessee before entry by the lessor of all right that he has in the land, will in respect of the privity between them, extinguish the rent. (k) The lessor may for the same reason expressly release the rent before entry. (7) The interesse termini may also be extinguished by release before entry to the lessor, but it cannot be surrendered, and will not merge in the freehold subsequently acquired. (m) A term may be liable to be avoided by some event agreed upon at its creation; as if a lease be made for twenty years, provided J. S. so long live; yet the lessee will have a term for twenty years, though the death of J. S. may put a premature end to it: for what was before said of a conditional lease for life, will apply to a conditional term of years. But sometimes a grant of lands is made without any limitation in respect of time. Where the form of the grant is such as will pass an estate of freehold, that is, if it be by feoffment, lease and release, bargain and sale enrolled, covenant to stand seised, or being in remainder or reversion, by grant, it will, though indefinite as to time, operate, as we have before seen, as an estate for life; but where no conveyance is made, sufficient to pass a freehold estate, such demise would, according to the older authorities, create no more than an estate at will; and so where a man granted to another the rents and profits of lands; or gave him licence to take the profits; without mentioning for how long a period, or reserving any annual rent, whereby it might have (k) Co. Litt 270. b. (1) Ibid. (m) Doe dem. Rawlins v. Walker, 5 B. & C. 111. been intended that it was meant as a demise for a year. (n) Indeed, as the law formerly stood, wherever a man entered into land with the consent of the owner, and no express time was limited for his enjoying it, he was tenant at will; as where he entered by consent of the owner under a void or imperfect conveyance of the freehold, as a feoffment or lease for life without livery: (o) although if he entered merely under colour of such conveyance, without the express consent of the owner, he was not tenant at will, but a disseisor, inasmuch as no consent can be implied from a mere conveyance, which is insufficient to effect the original intention of the parties. (p) But if a man entered into land without even any colour of title, or if lessee for years held over his term, and the owner of the land accepted rent of him, by such acceptance he became tenant at will. (q) According to the strict letter of the old law, such tenancy, as it existed only by the mutual will of both lord and tenant, might be put an end to at any time by either party. (r) An estate so precarious, and so generally prejudicial to Tenancy from the interests of agriculture, has long been looked upon with year to year. increasing strictness; and it is now clearly settled that where the relation of landlord and tenant is created without any limitation as to time, such tenancy, except in the case of lodgings, or an express agreement to hold at will, or a tenancy by sufferance, or under a contract, shall be from year to year; not determinable at the will of either party; nor even at the end of the current year; unless by a notice to quit, regularly served by the party intending to dissolve the tenancy: so that, unless such notice be given, the tenancy may run on from year to year until some extraordinary event spring up Determination to destroy it. (s) A tenancy from year to year will not be determined unless there be a legal notice to quit, or a surrender in writing or in law, and will not be determined until the regular determination of the tenancy, although the premises are destroyed by fire. (t) of lease from year to year. By the Statute of Frauds, parol leases for more than three years are to have effect only as estates at will. But as a tenancy at will generally is now considered a tenancy from year to year, on the like principle, a parol lease for more more than three than three years is construed as creating a similar tenancy, the terms of which as to rent, &c. will be regulated by the parol agreement. (u) Parol lease for years. Holding over under assign ment of void lease. If a tenant holds over after the expiration of his term with with consent or permission of his landlord, but without any fresh contract, he will become tenant from year to year, and will hold on the terms of his original lease, (v) and the same doctrine applies, if he enters under an assignment of a void lease. (w) But in order to raise the implied agreement, he must produce the lease in evidence, which, if not properly stamped, he cannot do. (x) Lodgings. The case of lodgings is an exception to the rule; the notice (s) Legg v. Strudwick, 2 Salk. 414. Timmins v. Rowlinson, Burr. 1609. Leighton v. Theed, ubi sup. Roe dem. Bree v. Lees, Bl. Rep. 1172. Doe dem. Shore v. Porter, 3 T. R. 16. Rex v. Inhabitants of Stone, 6 T. R. 297. Doe dem. Martin v. Watts, 7 T. R. 83. Clayton v. Blakey, 8 T. R. 3. Doe dem. Warner v. Browne, 8 East, 1654. Rees dem. Mears v. Perrott, 4 C. & P. 230. (t) Taylor v. Chapman, Peake's Add. Cas. 19. Stevens v. Whitney, (v) Rigge v. Bell, supra. (w) Walliss v. Broadbent, 4 Ad. & Ell. 877. (x) Beale v. Sankey, 3 Bing. 850. N. S. required in such cases being in most cases regulated by local custom, which generally requires the same space of time for notice as the period for which the lodgings are taken. (y) If an annuitant enter under powers in his annuity deed, Annuitant. and the tenant attorn and pay rent, and distresses are made by the annuitant, and a six months' notice to quit given, a tenancy from year to year is created between the annuitant and the tenant in possession, determinable on payment of the arrears on which the lease for years under which the tenant holds will revive. (2) An agreement in writing for a yearly tenancy is not altered by the tenant agreeing to pay his rent quarterly, and actually doing so, and therefore a distress for a quarter's rent would be illegal. (a) An allegation in a declaration that the tenant held from year to year is not supported by proof of an agreement, that he should become tenant at a certain rent per quarter, paying a quarter's rent in advance so long as he should continue tenant. (a) by tenant from year to year. A tenant from year to year may demise from year to year, Underletting or may assign his term, or may underlet part of it as for three quarters of a year or so many months,-for a tenant has it as a right incident to his tenancy to make a sub-tenancy, in order to which it is by no means necessary to have the first landlord's assent, unless by some agreement between him and his lessor his power is circumscribed. (b) A demise from year to year by a tenant who holds from year to year, is in legal operation, a demise from year to year, during the continuance of the original lease and is so properly described in pleading. (c) (y) Vide infra. (z) Doe dem. Chawne v. Boul ton, 1 Nev. & P. 650. (a) Turner v. Allden, 1 Tyr. & Gr. 819. (a) Wilkinson v. Hall, 3 Bing. 510. N. S. (b) Vide Rex v. Aldborough, 1 East, 598. (c) Pike v. Eyre, 9 B. & C. 909. Strict tenant at will. Adverse possession by tenant at will. Adverse possession by tenant from year to year. If tenant for years underlet from year to year, and on the expiration of his term hold on by agreement with his landlord from month to month, the former tenancy with the tenant from year to year will in the absence of any express agreement to the contrary be held to continue. (d) This modern doctrine of tenancy from year to year extends to cases where a tenancy at will was anciently implied, and does not affect cases where the parties create a tenancy at will by the very terms of the demise. (e) For if two parties agree to let certain premises so long as both shall please, reserving a compensation accruing de die in diem without reference to any aliquot part of a year, this will be strictly a tenancy at will. (f) Where a person is suffered by the owner to live in a house, rent free, without any limitation as to time, such person is still, in the eye of the law, tenant at will. (g) By the 7th section of the 3 & 4 Wm. IV. c. 27, it is enacted, that when any person shall be in possession as tenant at will, the right of the person entitled subject thereto, to make an entry or distress, or bring an action to recover such land, shall be deemed to have first accrued, either at the determination of such tenancy, or at the expiration of one year next after the commencement of such tenancy, at which time such tenancy shall be deemed to have determined. On this section it has been decided, that it will not apply to the case of a tenant at will who quitted possession before the passing of the act, though he had been twenty years in possession without payment of rent. (h) By the 8th section it is provided, that when any person shall be in possession as tenant from year to year, or other period, without lease in writing, the right of the person en (d) Pierce v. Starr, 2 Man. & (e) See Co. Lit. 55. a. note (3). (g) Rex v. Collett, Russ. & Ryan, C. C. 498. Rex v. Gobling, ibid. 525. (h) Doe dem. Thomson v. Thomson, 6 Ad. & Ell. 721. |