Real Property: Landlord-Tenants: Leasehold Estates: Periodic Tenancy

Periodic Tenancy:
  • Lease continues for successive intervals. Until L or T give proper notice of termination.
  • Can be created expressly (L conveys to T from month to month or year to year)
  • Can be created by implication:
    • Land is leased with no mention of duration, but provision is made for rent payment at set intervals
    • An oral term of years in violation of the statute of frauds creates an implied periodic tenancy measured by the way rent is tendered.
      • L and T negotiate on the phone for a commercial lease. They orally agree on a 5 year lease with rent at $1,000 a month. This is not a tenancy for years because it violates the statute of frauds.
      • If T sends L a check for $1,000 and L accepts it: T’s first rental payment renders his interest an implied periodic tenancy, with the intervals based on the way rent is tendered.
    • The holdover: In a residential lease, if L elects to hold over a T who has wrongfully stayed on past the conclusion of the original lease an implied periodic tenancy arises—measured by the way rent is tendered.
  • Termination by notice – usually written.
    • At common law – notice must be given equal to the period itself, unless otherwise agreed.
      • In a month-to-month periodic tenancy --> 1 months notice
      • In a week-to-week periodic tenancy --> 1 week’s notice
      • Exception: year-to-year or greater --> 6 months notice.
  • Note: parties may lengthen or shorten notice periods by private agreement.
  • Note: periodic tenancy must end at the conclusion of a natural lease period.
    • EX: L leased Blackacre to T on Jan. 1, 2003, for a periodic tenancy of month-to-month. On May 15, 2003, T sends written notice of termination. T is bound until June 30.