Source: https://chestofbooks.com/real-estate/Property-Law-In-Land/Estates-As-To-Quantity-And-Quality-Estates-Less-Part-3.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 10:04:56+00:00

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1 The judgment below was reversed, however, on account of an error in rejecting certain testimony. - Ed.
In like manner, under the English valuation and tax acts, it has been held that, in order to constitute a tenancy, there must be a putting of a lessee into the exclusive occupation of the apartment, and not a mere admission of a common lodger or inmate, the landlord retaining the legal possession of the whole house. Smith v. St. Michael, 3 E. & E. 383; Stamper v. Overseers of Sunderland, L. R. 3 C. P. 388; The Queen v. St. George's Union, L. R. 7 Q. B. 90.
It was decided by Lord Ellenborough, and admitted by Barons Parke and Alderson, that a covenant, in a lease of a coffee-house in London, not to lease or underlet the premises or any part thereof, was not broken by permitting a man to lodge for a year in a particular room, "of which he had exclusive possession," unless under a distinct demise of the room so as to enable him to maintain trespass. Doe v. Laming, 4 Camp. 73; Greenslade v. Tapscott, 1 C, M. & R. 55; s. c. 4 Tyrwh. 566. An entire floor, or a series of rooms, or even a single room, may doubtless be let for lodgings, so separated from the rest of the house, as to become in fact and in law the separate tenement of the lessee. Newman v. Anderton, 2 B. & P. N. R. 224; Fenn v. Grafton, 2 Bing. N. C. 617; s. c. 3 Scott, 56; Monks v. Dykes, 4 M. & W. 567; Swain v. Mizner, 8 Gray, 182. But in such a case, as observed by this court in Swaine v. Mizner, he is "a housekeeper, and not a lodger only." In Monks v. Dykes, it was held that a lodger, occupying one room in a house, the woman who owned the house residing therein and keeping the key of the outer door, had no such occupation of the room that he could maintain trespass against a stranger intruding into the room; and Baron Parke said: "I think that neither in law nor in common sense can a man be described as being in possession of a dwelling house, when he is a mere lodger."
It has indeed been held in two English cases, cited for the defendant, that agreements to take certain apartments in a house as lodgings at a yearly rent were within the statute of frauds. Inman v. Stamp, 1 Stark. 12; Edge M.Strafford, 1 Tyrwh. 293; s. c. 1 C. & J. 391. Hut there is nothing in either of the reports to show that the rooms were in a boarding house; and, as suggested by the judges in Wright v. Stavert, 2 E. & E. 721, each appears to have been a case of an agreement, which, if perfected by entry, would have amounted to an actual demise, and would have given the occupant all the possessory rights of a tenant.
In Wright v. Stavert, on the other hand, it was held that an oral agreement to pay a certain sum yearly for the board and lodging of a gentleman and his servant in a boarding house, terminable by a quarter's notice on either side, was not an agreement for any interest in real estate; and Chief Justice Cockburn said that to hold such a case to be within the statute of frauds would lead to most absurd and inconvenient consequences. The only distinction between that case and the present is that it states one of the terms of the agreement to have been that "the defendant was to have no exclusive right to or interest in any particular rooms, but to be considered simply as a boarder and an inmate."
v. Stavert, 2 E. & E. 721, 727; Underwood v. Burrows, 7 C. & P. 26; McCrea v. Marsh, 12 Gray, 211.
The instructions requested were, therefore, rightly refused, and no exception appears to have been taken to the instructions given.
15 Wendell (N. Y.), 379. - 1836.
Assumpsit for rent. Plaintiff's testator agreed in writing to let Districh have his farm for one year, the latter to sow oats and give testator one-third in the half bushel, to sow corn and give one-third in the basket, etc., etc. Plaintiff proved quantities of grain sowed and rested. Defendant asked for a non-suit on the ground that the instrument was not a lease but made the parties to it tenants in common of the crop. Non-suit granted. Plaintiff appeals.

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