Tenants and Land Law in England and Wales

March 12, 2009 - PRLog -- To coincide with the online publication of “The Tenants Survival Guide” – a book about tenancy in the UK – HowTo.co.uk takes a look at renting property and getting to grips with legislation…

With the rise in property prices in the UK and the squeeze on credit affecting mortgage lending, more and more people, especially young people, will be turning to the rental sector where, of course, there are good landlords and bad landlords ranging, in each category, from private individual owners to large companies.

It is, therefore, important before you take a lease of residential property as your home, that you acquaint yourself with your basic rights and obligations and know those of your landlord too.

Freehold

All land in England and Wales is held of the Crown and the highest form of private landholding is 'freehold' which, basically, means that the landowner owns rights in the land, unencumbered by any other rights except those which have been created over it in the past by previous owners (such as rights of way) or created over it by him, such as mortgages (to secure borrowings by him on the security of the value of the land) and leases.

Leasehold

Sometimes, where a leaseholder has a long enough lease and its terms permit him to sublet, he may grant smaller leases to sub-tenants, creating a chain of ownership of rights over the land - where there is a sub-tenant, he will have the current possession and use of the land, in accordance with the terms of the sub-lease.

The granting of a lease is the granting of the right to possess the land for a certain period (which may be weeks or years) and subject to the payment of rent for the use of the land and other conditions such as what the tenant (who holds the lease) may do on the land - for example whether he may carry on a business there or whether he is restricted to using the land for residential use. There are also commonly other conditions, such as the specification of who shall be responsible for repairs to the building.

Tenant Protection

Sometimes, in relation to such matters, what the parties to the lease (the freeholder or landlord and the tenant) may agree is subject to regulation by Act of Parliament (enforceable by the Courts), and the parties may not normally 'contract-out' of the statutory regulation, by private agreement in the lease. Needless to say, much of the regulation is in favour of the tenant because the tenant will frequently be in a weaker bargaining position than the landlord, who will say: 'These are the terms of the lease, take it or leave it'.

Licences to occupy

There are also 'licences' to occupy land. These are less than leases and do not grant 'possession', which is the right of exclusive occupation. Simple, everyday examples of 'licences' are the right to occupy a cinema seat or to enter a shop to make purchases but, sometimes, landlords try to impose 'licences' rather than leases, on 'tenants'. Often, the Courts find that these 'licences' are really leases. In any event, there is a measure of protection afforded even to residential licensees - such as that against summary eviction, without a Court Order.

Knowing the Law

This is where this useful little book comes in handy and, wielded together with the knowledge that there is free legal advice available to the public, especially in the area of landlord and tenant, the growing number of tenants are going to be well-equipped with any sharp practice by landlords which the rise in demand for rented property might bring about.

Helpful organisations

Some national organisations which can provide varying degrees of free preliminary legal advice on landlord and tenant matters are the Citizens' Advice Bureaux and the charity Shelter. However there are many purely local organizations too (such as The Mary Ward Centre in central London), so it is also worth investigating these.

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HowTo offers consumers free access to the full text content of a range of information-based non fiction books across abroad, business, careers, family, learning, money, poker, property, wellbeing and writing sectors. Visitors can read all or part of any of our titles online, or download a PDF version for a small fee.