Engravd by TTrotter from an Original Picture, painted by Cornelius Jansen, in the Hall of the Inner Temp Dec 10th 1792, Publish'd as the Art direct, by I Cadell, Strand. CHAPTER THE NINTH. OF ESTATES LESS THAN FREEHOLD. OF Feftates that are lefs than freehold, there are three forts: 1. Eftates for years: 2. Estates at will: 3. Eftates by fufferance. I. AN eftate for years is a contract for the poffeffion of lands or tenements, for fome determinate period; and it takes place where a man letteth them to another for the term of a certain number of years, agreed upon between the leffor and the leffee, and the leffee enters thereon. If the leafe be but for half a year, or a quarter, or any less time, this leffee is respected as a tenant for years, and is stiled fo in fome legal proceedings; a year being the shortest term which the law in this cafe takes notice of. And this may, not improperly, lead us into a fhort digreffion, concerning the division and calculation of time by the English law. THE space of a year is a determinate and well-known period, confifting commonly of 365 days: for, though in biffextile or leap years it confifts properly of 366, yet by the ftatute 21 Hen. III the increafing day in the leap-year, toge We may here remark, once for all, that the terminations of "or" and "ee" obtain, in law, the one an active, the other a paffive fignification; the former ufually denoting the doer of any act, the latter him to whom it is done. The feoffor is he that maketh a feoffment; the feoffee is he to whom it VOL. II. is made: the donor is one that giveth M ther ther with the preceding day, shall be accounted for one day only. That of a month is more ambiguous: there being, in common ufe, two ways of calculating months; either as lunar, confifting of twenty-eight days, the fuppofed revolution of the moon, thirteen of which make a year: or, as calendar months of unequal lengths, according to the Julian divifion in our common almanacs, commencing at the calends of each month, whereof in a year there are only twelve. A month in law is a lunar month, or twenty-eight days, unless otherwife expreffed; not only because it is always one uniform period, but because it falls naturally into a quarterly divifion by weeks. Therefore a leafe for "twelve months" is only for forty-eight weeks; but if it be for "a twelvemonth" in the fingular number, it is good for the whole year. For herein the law recedes from it's usual calculation, because the ambiguity between the two methods of computation ceases; it being generally understood that by the space of time called thus, in the fingular number, a twelvemonth, is meant the whole year, confifting of one folar revolution (1). In the fpace of a day all the twenty-four • 6 Rep. 61. (1) In all ftatutes a month fignifies a lunar month, unless it appears to be clearly intended to be a calendar month. 6 T. R. 224. But in bills of exchange and promiffory notes a month is always a calendar month; as if a bill or note is dated on the 10th of January, and made payable one month after date, it is due (the three days of grace being included) on the 13th of February. The fix months in cases of lapfe and quare impedit, are also calendar months. 6 Co. 61. It is fomewhat remarkable that the difference between fix calendar months and half a year does not seem to have been con. fidered by legal writers. Lord Coke fays, half a year confifts of 182 days. 1 Inf. 135. But fix calendar months will be one or two days lefs or more than half a year, accordingly as February is reckoned, or not, one of the fix. Lord Coke, in his report of Cateby's cafe, clearly confiders the tempus femeftre to be fix calen. dar months (6 Co. 61.); yet fir George Croke in his report of that cafe, hours are ufually reckoned, the law generally rejecting all fractions of a day, in order to avoid difputes. Therefore, if I am bound to pay money on any certain day, I discharge the obligation if I pay it before twelve o'clock at night; after which the following day commences (2). But to return to estates for years. THESE eftates were originally granted to mere farmers or husbandmen, who every year rendered fome equivalent in money, provifions, or other rent, to the leffors or landlords; but, in order to encourage them to manure and cultivate the ground, they had a permanent intereft granted them, not determinable at the will of the lord. And yet their poffeffion was esteemed of fo little confequence, that they were rather confidered as the bailiffs or fervants of the lord, who were to [142] receive and account for the profits at a fettled price, than as having any property of their own. And therefore they were not allowed to have a freehold estate: but their interest (such as it was) vefted after their deaths in their executors, who were to make up the accounts of their teftator with the lord, and his other creditors, and were entitled to the stock upon the farm. The leffee's eftate might alfo, by the antient law, be at any time defeated by a common recovery suffered by the tenant of the freehold ; which annihilated all leafes for 1 lbid. 46. • Co. Litt. 135. cafe, ftates it as confidently to confift of 182 days; and in neither report is the difference taken notice of. Cro. Fac. 167. From the cafes in 3 Wilf. 21. and 1 T. R. 159. it appears that a notice to a tenant from year to year to quit the premises, must be half a year, and not fix calendar months, though the computation by the latter would be more fimple and convenient; and that was understood to be the proper notice by the court of common pleas in 2 Bl. Rep. 1224. (2) See 4 T. R. 170. where there was a difference of opinion in the court upon the question, whether a bill of exchange could be protested for non-payment on the fame day that it was due, or the acceptor had the whole of the day to difcharge it in? years then fubfifting, unless afterwards renewed by the recoveror, whose title was fuppofed fuperior to his by whom those leafes were granted. WHILE eftates for years were thus precarious, it is no wonder that they were usually very short, like our modern leases upon rack rent; and indeed we are told that by the antient law no leafes for more than forty years were allowable, because any longer poffeffion (especially when given without any livery declaring the nature and duration of the eftate) might tend to defeat the inheritance. Yet this law, if ever it existed, was foon antiquated; for we may observe, in Madox's collection of antient inftruments, fome leafes for years of a pretty early date, which confiderably exceed that period and long terms, for three hundred years or a thousand, were certainly in use in the time of Edward III', and probably of Edward I. But certainly, when by the ftatute 21 Hen. VIII. c. 15. the termor (that is, he who is entitled to the term of years) was protected against these fictitious recoveries, and his intereft rendered fecure and permanent, long terms began to be more frequent than before; and were afterwards extensively introduced, being found extremely convenient for family fettlements and mortgages: continuing fubject, however, to the fame rules of fucceffion, [143] and with the fame inferiority to freeholds, as when they were little better than tenancies at the will of the landlord. EVERY eftate which muft expire at a period certain and prefixed, by whatever words created, is an estate for years. And therefore this estate is frequently called a term, terminus, because it's duration or continuance is bounded, limited, and determined: for every fuch estate muft have a certain beginning, and certain end'. But id certum eft, quod certum reddi |