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twenty years, this is good; but to hold from Michaelmas next for the term of his natural life, is void. For no eftate of freehold can commence in futuro; because it cannot be created at common law without livery of seifin, or corporal poffeffion of the land: and corporal possession cannot be given of an estate now, which is not to commence now, but hereafter'. And, because no livery of feifin is necessary to a leafe for years, fuch leffee is not faid to be feifed, or to have true legal feifin, of the lands. Nor indeed does the bare leafe veft any estate in the leffee; but only gives him a right of entry on the tenement, which right is called his intereft in the term, or interesse termini: but when he has actually so ‹entered, and thereby accepted the grant, the eftate is then and not before vested in him, and he is poffeffed, not properly of the land, but of the term of years; the poffeffion or feilin of the land remaining ftill in him who hath the freehold. Thus the word, term, does not merely fignify the time fpecified in the leafe, but the estate also and intereft that paffes by that leafe: and therefore the term may expire, during the continuance of the time; as by surrender, forfeiture, and the like. For which reafon, if I grant a lease to A for the term of three years, and after the expiration of the said term to B for fix years, and A furrenders or forfeits his leafe at the end of one year, B's interest shall immediately take effect but if the remainder had been to B from and after the expiration of the faid three years, or from and after the expiration of the faid time, in this cafe B's intereft will not.commence till the time is fully elapfed, whatever may become of -A's term '.

TENANT for term of years hath incident to, and inseparable from his estate, unless by special agreement, the fame eftovers, which we formerly obferved" that tenant for life was intitled to; that is to fay, houfe-bote, fire-bote, ploughbote, and hay-bote "; terms which have been already explained *.

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WITH regard to emblements, or profits of land fowed by tenant for years, there is this difference between him, and tenant for life: that where the term of tenant for years depends upon a certainty, as if he holds from midsummer for ten years, and in the last year he fows a crop of corn, and it is not ripe and cut before midsummer, the end of his term, the landlord fhall have it; for the tenant knew the expiration of his term, and therefore it was his own folly to sow what he never could reap the profits of. But where the lease for years depends upon an uncertainty; as, upon the death of the leffor, being himself only tenant for life, or being a husband seised in right of his wife; or if the term of years be determinable upon a life or lives; in all these cases, the eftate for years not being certainly to expire at a time foreknown, but merely by the act of God, the tenant, or his executors, fhall have the emblements in the fame manner that a tenant for life or his executors fhall be entitled thereto. Not fo, if it determine by the act of the party himself; as if tenant for years does any thing that amounts to a forfeiture: in which case the emblements fhall go to the leffor, and not to the leffee, who hath determined his estate by his own default 2.,

II. THE second species of estates not freehold are estates at will. An eftate at will is where lands and tenements are let by one man to another, to have and to hold at the will of the leffor; and the tenant by force of this lease obtains poffeffion. Such tenant hath no certain indefeasible estate, nothing that can be affigned by him to any other; for that the leffor may determine his will, and put him out whenever he pleases. But every estate at will is at the will of both parties, landlord and tenant; fo that either of them may determine his will, and quit his connexions with the other at his own pleasure. Yet this must be understood with some restriction.

Y.Litt. §. 68. z Co. Litt. 56.

a Ibid. 55. VOL. II,

b Litt. §. 68.
c Co. Litt. 55.

K

Fors

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Book II. For, if the tenant at will fows his land, and the landlord before the corn is ripe, or before it is reaped, puts him out, yet the tenant shall have the emblements, and free ingress, egress, and regress, to cut and carry away the profits". And this for the fame reason, upon which all the cases of emblements turn; viz. the point of uncertainty: fince the tenant could not poffibly know when his landlord would determine his will, and therefore could make no provifion against it; and having fown the land, which is for the good of the public, upon a reasonable prefumption, the law will not fuffer him to be a lofer by it. But it is otherwise, and upon reafon equally good, where the tenant himself determines the will; for in this cafe the landlord fhall have the profits of the land.

WHAT act does, or does not, amount to a determination of the will on either fide, has formerly been matter of great debate in our courts. But it is now, I think, fettled, that (besides the express determination of the leffor's will, by declaring that the leffee fhall hold no longer; which must either be made upon the land, or notice must be given to the leffee 8) the exertion of any act of ownership by the lessor, as entering upon the premises and cutting timber", taking a diftrefs for rent and impounding it thereon, or making a feoffment, or lease for years of the land to commence immediately; any act of defertión by the leffee, as affigning his estate to another, or committing wafte, which is an act inconfiftent with fuch a tenure'; or, which is inftar omnium, the death or outlawry, of either leffor or leffée ; puts an end to or determines the estate at will.

THE law is however careful, that no fudden determination of the will by one party fhall tend to the manifeft and unforefeen prejudice of the other. This appears in the cafe of

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emblements before-mentioned; and, by a parity of reafon, the leffee after the determination of the leffor's will, fhall have reafonable ingrefs and egrefs to fetch away his goods and utenfils". And, if rent be payable quarterly or half-yearly, and the leffee determines the will, the rent fhall be paid to the end of the current quarter or half-year. And, upon the fame principle, courts of law have of late years leant as much as poffible against conftruing demifes, where no certain term is mentioned, to be tenancies at will; but have rather held them to be tenancies from year to year fo long as both parties please, especially where an annual rent is reserved: in which cafe they will not fuffer either party to determine the tenancy even at the end of the year, without reasonable notice to the other P.

THERE is one fpecies of eftates at will, that deferves a more particular regard than any other; and that is, an estate held by copy of court roll; or, as we usually call it, a copyhold eftate. This, as was before obferved, was in it's original and foundation nothing better than a mere eftate at will. But, the kindness and indulgence of fucceffive lords of manors having permitted these eftates to be enjoyed by the tenants and their heirs, according to particular customs established in their respective diftricts; therefore, though they ftill are held at the will of the lord, and fo are in general expressed in the court rolls to be, yet that will is qualified, restrained, and limited, to be exerted according to the cuftom of the manor. This custom, being fuffered to grow up by the lord, is looked upon as the evidence and interpreter of his will his will is no longer arbitrary and precarious; but fixed and afcertained by the cuftom to be the fame, and no other, that has time out of mind been exercised and declared by his anceftors. A copyhold tenant is therefore now full as properly a tenant by the custom, as a tenant at will; the custom

n Litt. §. 69.

• Salk. 414. 1 Sid. 339.

P This kind of leafe was in ufe as long ago as the reign of Hen. VIII.

when half a year's notice feems to have been required to determine it. (T. 13 Hen. VIII. 15, 16.)

q pag. 93.

K 2

having

BOOK II. having arisen from a series of uniform wills. And therefore it is rightly observed by Calthorpe', that "copyholders and 66 customary tenants differ not so much in nature as in name: "for although fome be called copyholders, fome customary, "fome tenants by the virge, some base tenants, fome bond "tenants, and fome by one name and fome by another, yet "do they all agree in fubftance and kind of tenure: all the "faid lands are holden in one general kind, that, is, by "custom and continuance of time; and the diverfity of their 66 names doth not alter the nature of their tenure."

ALMOST every copyhold tenant being therefore thus tenant at the will of the lord according to the cuftom of the manor; which customs differ as much as the humour and temper of the respective antient lords, (from whence we may account for their great variety) fuch tenant, I say, may have, so far as the custom warrants, any other of the eftates or quantities of intereft, which we have hitherto confidered, or may hereafter confider, to hold united with this cuftomary estate at will. A copyholder may, in many manors, be tenant in feefimple, in fee-tail, for life, by the curtefy, in dower, for years, at sufferance, or on condition; subject however to be deprived of these estates upon the concurrence of those circumstances which the will of the lord, promulged by immemorial cuftom, has declared to be a forfeiture or abfolute determination of those interests; as in fome manors the want of iffue male, in others the cutting down timber, the nonpayment of a fine, and the like. Yet none of these interests amount to freehold; for the freehold of the whole manör abides always in the lord only, who hath granted out the ufe and occupation, but not the corporal feifin or true poffeffion, of certain parts and parcels thereof, to these his cuftomary tenants at will.

THE reafon of originally granting out this complicated kind of interest, so that the fame man fhall, with regard to the fame land, be at one and the fame time tenant in feea Litt. §. 81. 2 Inft. 325.

ron copyholds. 51, 54,

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