Also known as: tenants · lessee
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
One who holds or possesses lands or tenements by lease, co-ownership, or other right or title.
Tabitha Taylor owns an apartment building but leases units to several families who sleep there nightly. She enters one unit at night intending to steal from a tenant's safe. Because the unit serves as a dwelling for the tenants, the structure qualifies as the dwelling of another for burglary purposes.
Tara Tran holds a mortgage on a commercial building leased to True North Logistics. When the mortgagee initiates foreclosure, the tenant receives notice as a necessary party. Failure to join the tenant could prevent the sale from extinguishing its leasehold interest.
Select any source to read its text and confirm it supports the definition.
Tyrone Tran conveys land to Talia Torres and Tonya Takahashi as tenants in common under a deed creating an estate tail. Each receives an undivided interest that passes to their respective issue upon death, consistent with the form of concurrent ownership permitted in the jurisdiction.
Travis Tate leases warehouse space from Thunderbolt Motors for a three-year term. The parties execute a written agreement specifying the exact duration, creating a landlord-tenant relationship that endures for the computable period without requiring notice to terminate at the end.
Talia Torres and her husband hold their home as tenants by the entirety. After separation proceedings begin, she executes a will devising her interest to a third party. Upon her death while still married, title passes by survivorship to her husband rather than under the will.
Tonya Takahashi and her spouse own investment property as joint tenants. Upon her death, the surviving spouse's fractional interest is valued immediately before the death for purposes of determining the augmented estate, accounting for the right of survivorship that existed at that moment.
Yes. Occupancy rather than ownership controls. When tenants use the building as their dwelling, an owner who enters with intent to commit a felony inside commits burglary of the dwelling of another.
Supporting sources
Yes. Tenants are necessary parties who hold interests in the property. They must receive notice, and failure to join them may affect the validity of the sale or the extinguishment of their leasehold rights.
Supporting sources
Yes. In jurisdictions recognizing such estates, the conveyance may create the estate tail to be held by two or more persons as tenants in common.
Supporting sources
A landlord-tenant relationship may be created to endure for any fixed or computable period of time, until notice terminates a periodic tenancy, or only so long as both parties desire.
Supporting sources
No. A will cannot dispose of nonprobate property held as tenants by the entirety. Title passes by operation of law to the surviving spouse if the tenancy remains intact at death.
Supporting sources
…in Kuhn v. Fairmont Coal Co. , 215 U.S. 349, 370, and in the Taxicab case, 276 U.S. at 532. [^maj-2]: In Hawkins v. Barney's Lessee , 5 Pet. 457, 464, it was stated that § 34 "has been uniformly held to be no more than a declaration of what the law would have been without it: to wit, that the lex loci must be the…