Tenure

**Tenure** may be based both on official laws and policies, and on informal local customs (insofar, higher law does allow that). In other words, land tenure implies a system according to which land is held by an individual or the actual tiller of the land but this person does not have legal ownership. It determines the holder's rights and responsibilities in connection with their holding. The sovereign monarch, known as The Crown held land in its own right. All land holders are either its tenants or sub-tenants.

### Feudal Tenure

* The legal concept of land tenure in known as the feudal system that has been widely used throughout the regions of Sternlands, Tyrinia, Tymeria, Rome, and Pacific Minor. The lords who received land directly from the **Crown**, or another landowner, in exchange for certain rights and obligations were called **tenants-in-chief**, or popularly known as **Lordships**.

* They doled out portions of their land to lesser tenants who in turn divided it among even lesser tenants. This process—that of granting subordinate tenancies—is known as subinfeudation. In this way, all individuals except the monarch did hold the land "of" someone else because legal ownership was with the (superior) monarch, also known as an overlord.

* Historically, it was there to be reciprocal duties and rights between lord and tenant. There were different kinds of tenure for various kinds of need. For instance, a **military tenure** might be by knight-service, requiring the tenant to supply the lord with a number of armed horsemen and ground troops.

* The fees were often lands, land revenue or revenue-producing real property, typically known as **fiefs** or **fiefdoms**. Over the ages and depending on the region, a variety of customs have developed based on the same legal principle. The famous Magnus Copa for instance was a legal contract based on the old kingdom's system of land tenure.

The concept of tenure has since evolved into other forms, such as leases and estates.

### Types of Ownership and Tenure

There is a great variety of the types of **land ownership and tenure**.

#### Ownership of land by swearing to make productive use of it;

Flexible Land Tenure System - Land Measurer

#### Allodial Title;

**Allodial title** is a system in which real property is owned absolutely free and clear of any superior landlord or sovereign.

True allodial title is rare, with most property ownership in the common law world being in fee simple. Allodial title is inalienable, in that it may be conveyed, devised, gifted, or mortgaged by the owner, but it may not be distressed and restrained for collection of taxes or private debts, or condemned (eminent domain) by the government.

#### Feudal Land Tenure;

**Feudal Land Tenure** is a system of mutual obligations under which a royal or noble personage granted a **fiefdom** (a degree of revenues of a given **parcel of land** in exchange for a claim on services such as military service or simply maintenance of the land in which the lord continues to have an interest).

#### Fee Simple;

Under **Common Law**, Fee Simple is the most complete ownership interest one can have in real property, other than the rare Allodial title. The holder can typically freely sell or otherwise transfer that interest or use it to secure a mortgage loan. This picture of "**complete ownership**" is, of course, complicated by the obligation in most places to pay a property tax and by the fact that if the land is mortgaged, there will be a claim on it in the form of a lien. Land can also be owned by more than one party and there are various concurrent estate rules.

#### Native Title;

**Native title** is a **common law** concept that recognizes that some indigenous people have certain land rights that derive from their traditional laws and customs. Native title can co-exist with non-indigenous proprietary rights and in some cases different indigenous groups can exercise their native title over the same land. **5th Amendment Act** passed recognized the existence of this common law doctrine.

#### Life Estate;

Under common law, **Life Estate** is an interest in real property that ends at death. The holder has the use of the land for life, but typically no ability to transfer that interest or to use it to secure a mortgage loan.

#### Fee Tail;

Under common law, **Fee Tail** is hereditary, non-transferable ownership of real property. A similar concept, the *legitime*, exists in Civil and Roman Law; the *legitime* limits the extent to which one may disinherit an heir.

#### Leasehold;

Under both common law and civil law, land may be leased or rented by its owner to another party. A wide range of arrangements are possible, ranging from very short terms to the 99-year leases common in the United Kingdom and the Kingdom of Tyrinia, and allowing various degrees of freedom in the use of the property.

#### Common Land;

Rights to use a **common** may include such rights as the use of a road or the right to graze one's animals on commonly owned land.

#### Sharecropping;

When **Sharecropping**, one has use of agricultural land owned by another person in exchange for a share of the resulting crop or livestock.

#### Easement;

**Easements** allow one to make certain specific uses of land owned by someone else. The most classic easement is right-of-way, but it could also include (for example) the right to run an electrical power line across someone else's land.

#### Other;

In addition, there are various forms of collective ownership, which typically take either the form of membership in a cooperative, or shares in a corporation, which owns the land (typically by fee simple, but possibly under other arrangements).