Lease

Is an assurance of property for life, or years, or at will, and for less time than he that leases has in the property; and usually made upon consideration of payment of a rent or other annual recompense, expressly covenanted to be paid for the use of the property.

Lessor who a lease

A lease is properly a conveyance of any lands or tenements, usually in consideration of rent, or other annual recompense, made for life, for years, or at will, but always for a less time than the lessor hath in the premises; for, if it be for the whole interest, it is more properly an assignment than a lease. He that letteth is called the lessor, and he to whom the lands, &c., are let is called the lessee.

See 2 Bl. Com. 20; Shep. Touch, ch.

14; Jacob; Broum. A lease for years is a contract between lessor and lessee for the possession and profit of lands, &c., on the one side, and a recompense for rent or other income on the other. Bac. Abr., tit.

Leases.

Lease is also sometimes, though improperly, applied to the estate, — i.e. the title, time, or interest the lessee hath in the thing demised; and then it is rather referred to the thing taken or had, and the interest of the taker therein; but it is more accurately applied to the manner or means of attaining or coming to the thing letten. See Sliep. Touch, ch.

14.

A lease for years, in legal understanding, is a contract for the possession and profits of lands for a determinate period, with the recompense of rent. It is not necessary that this rent should be in money. If received in kind, it is rent in contemplation of law.

United States v. Gratiot, 14 Pet. 526; 1 Mc Lean, ibi.

A lease is a contract for the possession and profits of lands and tenenaents, on one side, and a recompense of rent or other compensation, on the other.

Vorhees v. Presb. Church of Amsterdam, 5 How. Pr. 58, 71; Dolittle v. Eddy, 7 Barb. 74; Jackson V. Harsen, 7 Cow. 323; Sawyer v. Hanson, 24 Me. 542.

In estimating the language which constitutes a lease, the form of words used is of no consequence; and it is not necessary that the term lease should be used. Whatever is equivalent will be equally available, if the words assume the form of a license, covenant, or agreement, and the other requisites of a lease are present.

Moore v. Miller, 8 Pa. St. 272.

A vote by one corporation to lease its railroad to another, and of the latter corporation to take the lease at a rental of a certain per cent upon its reasonable cost, do not constitute a lease, within the meaning of said acts.

Peters v. Boston & Maine R. R. Co., 114 Mass. 127.

The word lease, in an instrument of lease, imports a covenant for quiet enjoyment, which runs with the land. ■ Hamilton v. Wright, 28 Mo. 199; Maule b.

Ashmead,20 Pa. St. 482.

A lessor for a term assigned the rent and " within lease." No interest passed beyond the term.

Demarest v. Willard, 8 Cow. 206.

Whether the term lease, spoken of the instrument, necessarily implies a seal, see Den u. Johnson, 15 N. J. L. 116. used in England, under the statute of uses. This kind of conveyance was thus contrived: A lease, or rather bargain and sale upon some pecuniary consideration for one year, was first made by the tenant of the freehold to the lessee or bargainee; i.e., to the person to whom the lands were to be conveyed. This made the vendor stand seised to the use of the lessee or bargainee, and vested in the latter the use of the term for a year. To this the statute of uses immediately transferred the possession. Thus the bargainee, being in possession, became immediately capable of accepting a release of the freehold and reversion (which could only be made to a tenant in possession). Accordingly, a release was made to him, dated the day next after the day of the date of the lease for a year, which at once transferred to him the freehold. This method of conveying gi-ew into extensive favor, and became adopted as the most common mode. It was deemed preferable to a bargain and sale, and to a covenant to stand seised to uses, because it effected a transfer of the legal estate under the rules of the common law; and therefore the declaration of uses upon it needed not to be confined to persons from whom a consideration moved. It was also preferred to a bargain and sale, and still more to a feoffment, because no additional ceremony was necessary to its operation; but the transfer of property in land might be effected by it in any part of the world, as instantaneously as the payment of money. And where the subject of conveyance was land in reversion or remainder, it was also preferable to a mere deed of grant; as 'the grantee had no need, if his title were called in question, to prove that there was a particular estate in existence at the time of the grant.

Leasehold.

Any interest in land less than freehold might be so called; but,.in practice, the word is generally applied to an estate for a fixed term of years.

Mozley Sj- W

A dependent tenure, derived either from a freehold or a copyhold estate.

Wharton.

Leases and sales of settled estates act. This is the Stat. 19 & 20 Vict. ch. 120, passed in 1856, the object of which is to or for any greater estate, to demise the land for periods which may last beyond his own life, subject to the provisions and restrictions in the act contained. (1 Steph. Com. 252,253,266,279; Wms. R.P.) This act has been amended in some particulars by Stat. 37 & 38 Vict. ch.

33, passed in 1874 Mozhy Sf- W.