Define: Land Tenure

Land tenure refers to the legal framework that governs the ownership, use, and transfer of land and natural resources within a society or jurisdiction. It encompasses the rights, responsibilities, and relationships between individuals, communities, and the state regarding land ownership and access. Land tenure systems vary widely across different cultures, countries, and regions, and they can be classified into various categories, such as private ownership, communal ownership, state ownership, or customary land tenure. Land tenure systems establish rules and regulations regarding land use, inheritance, transfer, taxation, and dispute resolution, and they play a crucial role in shaping land management practices, economic development, social relations, and environmental sustainability. Secure and equitable land tenure is essential for promoting economic growth, reducing poverty, safeguarding land rights, and ensuring sustainable management of natural resources.

Land tenure is the name given, particularly in common law systems, to the legal regime in which land is owned by an individual, who is said to “hold” the land. The sovereign monarch, known as The Crown, held land in its own right. All private owners are either tenants or sub-tenants. The term “tenure” is used to signify the relationship between tenant and lord, not the relationship between tenant and land.

Historically, in the system of feudalism, the lords who received land directly from the Crown were called tenants in chief. They doled out portions of their land to lesser tenants in exchange for services, 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 were said to hold the land “of” someone else.

Historically, it was usual for there to be reciprocal duties between lord and tenant. There were different kinds of tenure to fit various kinds of duties that a tenant might owe to a lord. For instance, a military tenure might require the tenant to supply the lord with a number of armed knights. The concept of tenure has since evolved into other forms, such as leases and estates.

Modes Of Ownership And Tenure

There are a great variety of modes of land ownership and tenure.

• Traditional land tenure. For example, most of the indigenous nations or tribes of North America had no formal notion of land ownership. When Europeans first came to North America, they sometimes simply disregarded traditional land tenure and simply seized land; more often, they accommodated traditional land tenure by recognising it as an aboriginal title. This theory formed the basis for (often unequal and often abused) treaties with indigenous peoples.
• Feudal land ownership is a system of mutual obligations under which a royal or noble personage grants a fiefdom—some degree of interest in the use or 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. This pattern was obtained from the level of high nobility as vassals of a monarch down to the level of lesser nobility, whose only vassals were their serfs.
• Life estate. Under common law, this is an interest in real property that ends at death. The holder has the use of the land for life but typically has no ability to transfer that interest or use it to secure a mortgage.
• Fee tail. Under common law, this 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.
• Fee simple. Under common law, this is the most complete ownership interest one can have in real property. The holder can typically freely sell or otherwise transfer that interest or use it to secure a mortgage. 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. In modern societies, this is the most common form of land ownership.
• Leasehold or rental. 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 allowing various degrees of freedom in the use of the property.
• Rights to use a commons, which may include such rights as the use of a road or the right to graze one’s animals on commonly owned land,.
• Sharecropping is the practice in which one makes use of agricultural land owned by another person in exchange for a share of the resulting crop or livestock.
• Easements, which allow one to make certain specific uses of land that is 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.

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). There are also various hybrids: in many communist states, government ownership of most agricultural land has combined in various ways with tenure for farming collectives.

Land Tenure In Particular Countries

• Land tenure in England
• Ireland: Land & Conveyancing Law Reform Bill, 2006
• Scotland: crofting, aoghairean and half-foot

Importance Of Tenure Today

Although the doctrine of tenure has little importance today, its influence still lingers in some areas.

The concepts of landlord and tenant have been recycled to refer to the modern relationship of the parties to land that is held under a lease. It has been pointed out by Professor F.H. Lawson in Introduction to the Laws of Property (1958), however, that the landlord-tenant relationship never really fit in the feudal system and was rather an “alien commercial element.

The doctrine of tenure did not apply to personal property. However, the relationship of bailment in the case of chattels closely resembles the landlord-tenant relationship that can be created on land.

This site contains general legal information but does not constitute professional legal advice for your particular situation. Persuing this glossary does not create an attorney-client or legal adviser relationship. If you have specific questions, please consult a qualified attorney licensed in your jurisdiction.

This glossary post was last updated: 9th April, 2024.