Land Lord Tenant Flashcards
What is a fixture?
A fixture is a chattel that is attached to land in such a way that it has ceased to be personal property and has become part of the reality. In a divided ownership case, such as a landlord-tenant situation, the chattel is owned and brought to the land by someone other than the landowner. The issue becomes whether the ownership of the chattel passes to the landowner. Accession is the term to describe the intent of the annexor to make the chattel a permanent part of the real estate. The court generally applies an intention test with some exceptions. The trade fixtures exception allows tenants who are tradesmen to remove items used in their trade that would be fixtures, unless removal would cause substantial damage. The tenant’s removal of the fixtures was proper because they were part of his trade and the removal caused no damage.
The status of the tenant is not relevant to the fixture analysis. Although the tenant continued to occupy the premises, he also continued to pay rent.
Whether the lease was made orally or in writing is not relevant to the fixture analysis.
Accession is the term to describe the intent of the annexor to make the chattel permanent. In this case, the air-conditioning systems were not accessions because the tenant did not have the intent to make the systems a permanent part of the building.
What is the landlords duty to deliver?
Unless the lease provides otherwise, the landlord is obligated to deliver the legal right to posses the premises to the tenant at the commencement of the lease term. However, courts are sharply split as to whether the landlord also impliedly warrants that he will deliver actual possession at the start of the lease term. This situation usually arises when a previous tenant holds-over on a previous lease.
Under the “American view,” the landlord only has the duty to deliver legal possession, not actual possession, of the premises. Under the “English rule,” the landlord does have the duty to deliver actual possession to the tenant at the start of the lease term. The English rule gives the lessee the right to terminate the lease and recover damages for the breach for the landlord failing to deliver possession.
B is correct. The landlord granted the legal right of possession to the tenant, which means that neither the landlord nor anyone holding of the landlord prevented the tenant from going into possession at the commencement of the lease term. The previous tenant’s lease term had ended before the new lease term began. The previous tenant then became a trespasser and was not holding of the landlord. As stated in the question, the court found for the landlord, and thus there is no rule in this jurisdiction that the landlord need also put the tenant into actual possession.
A is incorrect. The tenant did not waive any claim against the landlord by first suing the previous tenant. In the absence of a statute requiring delivery of actual possession of the premises, a landlord need deliver only legal possession to the tenant on the first day of the lease term. The previous tenant’s lease term had ended automatically before the new lease term began. The previous tenant then became a trespasser and was not holding of the landlord. Legal possession was delivered to the tenant because neither the landlord nor one holding of the landlord was in possession at the commencement of the tenant’s lease.
C is incorrect. The tenant has not been constructively evicted. The previous tenant’s lease term had ended automatically before the new lease term began. The previous tenant then became a trespasser and was not holding of the landlord. The landlord prevailed, and thus this jurisdiction follows the view that a landlord has a duty to deliver only legal possession to the tenant at the commencement of the lease and need not also deliver actual possession. Legal possession was delivered to the tenant because neither the landlord nor one holding of the landlord was in possession at the commencement of the tenant’s lease term.
D is incorrect. The landlord delivered legal possession to the tenant, which means that neither the landlord nor one holding of the landlord was in possession at the commencement of the tenant’s lease term. The previous tenant’s lease term had ended automatically before the new lease term began. The previous tenant then became a trespasser and was not holding of the landlord. The landlord prevailed, and thus this jurisdiction follows the rule that the landlord need not deliver actual possession to a new tenant. The tenant did not need to notify the landlord of the eviction suit because it was the tenant’s responsibility to evict the previous tenant.
