A Tenancy is an Estate in Free and Common Soc age By Anthony J. Fejfar, B.A., J.D., M.B.A., Phd.

Perpetual (C)Copyright by Anthony J. Fejfar and Neothomism, P.C., (PA) and the American Public as a Public Domain Copyright Some Property Commentators have reported, wrongly, that a residential or a commercial tenancy is a non-freehold estate, akin to serfdom. In fact, this is dead wrong. By the year 1100 in England most English persons were Freedom living in towns and cities, and if they worked at all outside the town or city, the lease was simply an agricultural or commercial lease that did not involve the tenant living on the leased premises. For a Freeman, a lease was simply contractual, because, the Freeman tenant was not in feudal system at all. Freemen were often contract soldiers who served the King outside of the feudal system. Now, the only tenants left in the feudal system were Tenants in Free and Common Soc age. Such Tenants were Freeman who agreed to a feudal relationship with a Noble, such as an Earl or a Duke, for a short period of time, typically a year. In this situation, a residential Tenant of an Earl, living in a small town on the Earls land, held his land of the Earl in Free and Common Sockage, in a contractual feudal relationship, not unlike a modern residential lease. The Tenant in Free and Common Socage then, typically owed only a duty to the Noble Landlord of paying rent and not committing voluntary waste on the leased premises, that is, not trashing the house, so to speak. The Landlord, on the other hand, had the duty to defend the Tenants Leasehold Estate, both legally and physically, and also had a duty to make reasonable repairs to keep the leased premises from

falling into disrepair. Thus, the Landlord who had a Tenant in Free and Common Socage, had a duty to keep the leased premises in a safe and habitable condition, just like the modern Implied Warranty of Habitability. Also, the Tenant had full feudal rights, which meant that he had a right to assert Sheriffs Law against the Noble Landlord, and also to take the matter to King Bench. The Landlord Noble had no right of summary eviction and no right of self-help eviction. In fact, in most instances all the Landlord could do for the breach of a Lease covenant was to sue for rent and had no legal power to bring an action for possession. It appears that American Landlord and Tenant law has been contaminated by a bastard, South African version of the English Common Law which was used against black tenants in Africa.