141 



TENANT FOR YEARS. 



TENANT IN FEE-SIMPLE. 



A gift to two persons for their lives is an estate in joint tenancy, 

 and for the life of the survivor, if the parties continue joint tenants ; 

 but if the jointure be severed, each has then an estate in the moiety 

 for his own life only. 



(2) The estates for life arising by operation of law are, the estate 

 tail after possibility of issue extinct, and the estate by courtesy and 

 the estate in dower. 



The estate tail after possibility of issue extinct arises when, by the 

 death of one of the persons from whom the inheritable issue is to pro- 

 ceed, it has become impossible that any person should exist upon 

 whom the estate tail can descend. Thus, if the lands be given to A 

 and the heirs of his body by B, his wife, or to A and B and the heirs 

 of their bodies, and B die without leaving any issue of their two bodies 

 living, A, from being tenant-in-tail special, becomes tenant-in-tail after 

 possibility of issue extinct; which is in effect nothing more than a 

 tenancy for life, with certain peculiar privileges remaining to the tenant 

 out of his former inheritance, the principal of which is the right of 

 committing waste. 



As to the nature and incidents of tenancy by the courtesy and 

 tenancy in dower, see COURTESY and DOWER. 



Tenants for life are entitled to estovers ; that is to say, to an allow- 

 ance of necessary wood for the repair of houses and fences on the land ; 

 but no tenant for life, except tenant-in-tail after possibility of issue 

 extinct, can cut down more timber than is necessary for such purposes, 

 or build new houses, or open mines, without being guilty of waste, 

 unless his estate be, as it may be, made expressly without impeach- 

 ment of waste. [WASTE.] 



A tenant for life is not bound to pay off the principal of incum- 

 brances affecting the inheritance, but he is bound to keep down the 

 interest of all such incumbrances. He may convey or demise his 

 tenement by the same means as a tenant in fee, provided he does not 

 attempt to convey any estate greater than his own. 



If he convey by grant, lease for years, bargain and sale, or lease and 

 release, he can pass no interest greater than that which he himself 

 possesses, the conveyance for the excess is merely void, and no for- 

 feiture is incurred. But a conveyance by feoffment, or by any assur- 

 ance equivalent to a fine or recovery, if purporting to exceed the 

 bounds of the life estate, displaces the estates in remainder and creates 

 a wrongful fee simple. The person entitled to the next estate in re- 

 mainder or reversion becomes then immediately entitled to enter, 

 thereby restoring all the estates which had been displaced by the 

 tortious conveyance, except that of the tenant for life, which becomes 

 absolutely forfeited. 



As to the merger and surrender of estates for life, see MKHCER and 



Sl-KRK.XDER. 



The name tenant for life is also applied to the person to whom, in 

 settlements or wills of personal property, is given an interest for life 

 only in the fund which is the subject of the settlement or will. [SET- 



.T; WILL.] 



TENANT FOR YEARS. [ESTATE; LEASE; TENANT AXD LAUD- 

 LOUD.] 



TENANT AT SUFFERANCE, says Lord Coke, "is he that at 

 first came in by lawful demise, and after his estate endeth continueth 

 in possession, and wrongfully holdeth over." Thus a tenant pur atttrc 

 vie, continuing hi possession after the death of cettuique riV, a tenant 

 for years holding after the expiration of his term, and a person who 

 having been tenant at will, continues in possession after the death o: 

 the lessor, are all tenants by sufferance. 



As the tenant at sufferance holds only by the laches of the owner 

 there is no privity of estate between them, and therefore the tenant a 

 sufferance i not capable of taking a release of the inheritance. Tenants 

 at sufferance were not bound to pay any rent ; till by the 1 Geo. II., c 

 28, 1, it was enacted that " where any tenant holds over after deinam 

 made and notice in writing given for delivering the possession, sucl 

 persons so holding over shall pay double the yearly value of the lands 

 so detained, for so long a time as the same are detained ; to be re 

 covered by action of debt, against the recovering of which penalt; 

 there shall be no relief in equity." 



TENANT RIGHT. It is good policy in the owners of land to givi 

 liberal acknowledgement of the tenant's right to the unexhausted im 

 iirovements of the land which he has held, if he should be forced 

 leave it ; because this will induce him to cultivate it with energy am 

 liberality. Accordingly in some parts of the country, and especially I 

 Lincolnshire, it is the custom to give the tenant on leaving a proper 

 tic Jii of his expenditure during the last few years of his tenancy vary 

 ing in amount with the number of years which has elapsed since th 

 expenditure, and the character as to permanence of the improvemenl 

 The following table may be taketi as describing a not uncommon se 

 of allowances : 



Description of 

 Improvement. 



Conditions Annexed. 



1. Fine gronnd bone On drained or naturally Two-thirds of the cost of what 

 and half-inch bones dry tillage land . . has been used in the last 



year of tenancy, and one- 

 third of that used in the 

 year preceding. 



Rate of Compensation to be 

 Allowed on Quitting. 



The advantage of such a set of allowances to the owner of the land 

 consists in its tendency to produce vigorous and intelligent cultivation; 

 its advantages to the tenantry and labourers are obvious. 



Tenant BiylU is the name for a species of customary estates peculiar 

 to the northern parts of England, in which border services against 

 Scotland were anciently performed before the political union of the 

 countries. Tenant-right estates were holden of the lord of the manor 

 by payment of certain customary rents and the render of the services 

 above mentioned, are descendible from ancestor to heir according to a 

 customary mode differing in some respects from the rule of descent at 

 common law, and were not devisable by will either directly or by 

 means of a will and surrender to the use of the same, though they are 

 now made devisable by 1 Viet., c. 26, s. 3. Although these estates 

 appear to have many incidents which do not properly belong to villein- 

 age tenure or copyhold, not being holden at the will of the lord, or by 

 copy of court roll, and being alienable by deed and admittance thereon, 

 it has been determined that they are not freehold, but that they fall 

 under the same general rules as copyhold estates. (Doe d. Reay v. 

 Huntington, 4 East, 271.) 



TENANT IN FEE-SIMPLE. A tenancy in fee-simple is the 

 greatest estate which a subject can have in land. [TuNURE.] The 

 possession of an estate in fee-simple involves a complete power of dis- 

 position over the land ; and after a grant made in fee-simple the grantor 

 has parted with his whole interest. 



The words necessary for transferring an estate in fee-sunple may be 



