ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the history of landlord and tenant that provides a context for the key concepts of estate and tenure. It describes the importance of the lease as a matter of contract and also as property, and outlines the key requirements for a leasehold relationship. The chapter considers the importance of the Human Rights Act 1988 to this area of the law and highlights some of the different types of lease. Contractual rights are personal which means that they bind only the parties to the contract, and give rise to the remedy of damages. The advantage of this merely contractual relationship from the tenant's point of view was that, prior to the Statute of Wills 1540, whilst land could not be left by will, leasehold could. A statutory tenancy is one which automatically arises at the end of the contractual terms as a result of legislation.
