A landlord is the owner of a house, apartment, condominium, land, or real estate which is rented or leased to an individual or business, who is called a tenant (also a lessee or renter).
The concept of a landlord may be traced back to the feudal system of manoralism (seignorialism), where a landed estate is owned by a Lord of the Manor (mesne lords), usually members of the lower nobility which came to form the rank of knights in the high medieval period, holding their fief via subinfeudation, but in some cases the land may also be directly subject to a member of higher nobility, as in the royal domain directly owned by a king, or in the Holy Roman Empire imperial villages directly subject to the emperor.
A Possession Order under the most common type, the assured shorthold tenancy (AST) is usually obtainable after eight weeks/two months of unpaid rent, and at the court's discretion after serving the tenant with a Section 8 notice (under the Housing Act 1988 as amended) for a lesser period for all assured tenancies, and on other grounds which defer to the landlord's ownership of the property.
A council-issued licence to be a landlord of such a unit is always required in some local authorities (in others, limited to the larger statutory examples).
The law has not regulated hefty break/resale charges nor does it prevent the sale of leasehold houses; in the 2010s certain of these proposals have been widely consulted upon and are being drafted.
It allows them individually to extend their leases for a new, smaller sum ("premium"), which if the tenants have enfranchised will not normally be demanded/recommended every 15–35 years.
Statute of 1925 implies into nearly all leases (tenancies at low rent and at a premium (fine, initial large sum)) of property that they can be sold (by the lessee, assigned); reducing any restriction to one whereby the landlord may apply standard that is "reasonable" vetting, without causing major delay.
In the overall diminishing domain of social housing, exceptionally, lessees widely acquire over time the Right to Buy for a fixed discount on the market price of the home.
This "security of tenure" is expressly subject to common reasons and associated mechanisms for a landlord to obtain back the premises.
As in most jurisdictions the law on rigorous adherence to lease terms on unlawful subletting and assignment can be strictly enforced, resulting in financial and premises loss if broken.
[12] The taking of a tenant's goods without a court-issued warrant (flowing from a court order or outstanding tax demand) (distress) has been banned.
In a single Atlanta zip code, up to 90% of the houses sold between January 2011 and June 2012 were purchased by instituitional investors.
In extreme situations, government compulsory purchase powers in many countries enable slum clearance to replace or renovate the worst of neighbourhoods.
[citation needed] The incentive is to obtain a good rental yield (profit) and prospect of property price inflation.
The disincentives are the locally varying rights of tenants and duties of landlords in repair/maintenance and administration — and keynote risks (tenant disputes, damage, neglect, loss of rent, insurance unavailability/disputes, economic slump, increased rate of interest on any mortgage, and negative equity or loss of investment).
Net income (yield) and capital growth from letting (renting out) particularly in leveraged buy to let, is subject to idiosyncratic risk, which is considered objectively intensified for a highly leveraged investor limited to a small number of similar profile homes, of narrow rental market appeal in areas lacking economic resilience.
A barrier if high and a relative attractive if low in many markets for a tenant, it is rarely debated in pre-tenancy term negotiations.
As well as having normal full fee paying students, Licensed Victuallers' School in Ascot provides discounted education prices for the children of landlords and others in the catering industry.