Contract Law - Difference between a lease and a licence

What this page is about: This page looks at the distinction between a lease and a licence.

The distinction between a lease and a licence, particularly relating to residential property, is an issue which continues to absorb the time and attention of the courts.

Unfortunately each successive judgment, while finding an answer to a particular problem, produces further material to be cited and argued over in future cases.

Hardly surprising therefore that Lord Donaldson MR said at the beginning of a recent judgment "We decided to put into writing out reasons for holding that the defendants in these three appeals were tenants. We also decided to give those reasons in a single judgment to which we have all contributed in order to reduce the scope for argument whether we all mean the same thing, which in fact we do".

Perhaps the Prime Minister and her former Chancellor could have learnt something from this approach!

One of the three appeals concerned unusual facts involving a Closing Order served on the ground that the premises were not fit for human habitation and isn't perhaps of general interest in the context of the Lease/Licence distinction. the other two were Aslan v Murphy (No 1) and Duke v Wynne both reported at [1989] 3 All ER 130.

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