Property Letting Articles

It is obvious, therefore, that leases for reasonable terms, and stipulating for fair rents, are beneficial alike to landlords and tenants. They give a sense of security to the latter, and in- spire them with energy and enterprise. And while the improvements effected under their influence conduce, during their currency, to the advantage of the occupiers, they add to the permanent value of estates, and to their future rental.

In almost every case, too, the granting of leases is immediately, as well as remotely, advantageous to the landlord. There is hardly an instance in which a farm will let for so much under an annual tenure as for a short lease, and under the latter the rent will be less than it would be were the Lease extended to a reasonable term of years: Hence, in granting such lease, a landlord is not sacrificing present for the sake of prospective advantages; on the contrary, he is providing most effectually, not only for the future, but, in a still greater degree, for the instant increase of his income.

Length of Leases
The expediency of granting leases being thus sufficiently established, their proper duration is the next point to be considered. This, however, is not a term which can be fixed by general rules. Pasture lands in good order may be advantageously let from year to year, or for short terms; and arable farms in a high state of cultivation and improvement, may be let for shorter periods than farms in an inferior condition. But, on the whole, it would seem to be the opinion of the most eminent authorities, that a term of nineteen or twenty- one years is, all things considered, the most proper for leases of arable farms in a medium condition. It is not, on the one hand, so extended as to tempt the tenant to delay commencing improvements, while, on the other, it is sufficiently lengthened to encourage him to make every fair exertion and outlay. And it has experience on its side, being the term most usually adopted in the best cultivated districts.