Leasehold Definition:

In his law dictionary, William Anderson proposed this description:

"Leasehold: an estate in land for a fixed term of years....

"At common law, a leasehold interest ... is personal property and subject to levy and sale as such."

Sweet also noted that leasehold interest "are personal estate, being chattels real...."¹

But in law, leaseholds may "quack like a duck" in being classed as a chattel, but in other ways they do not walk like a duck" as in estate law, where a will provides for the gift or transfer of "all my lands", this is taken to include any land the testator holds as leasehold.²

Within the body of common law jurisprudence, one notes these words of Madam Justice Dana Fabe of the Supreme Court of Alaska in Fairbanks v Golden Heart:

"A leasehold is a tenant's possessory estate in land or premises."

Or in Darr v Lone Star, in which Justice Cruz Reynoso of the Court of Appeals of California had the opportunity to write:

"A leasehold vests exclusive possession of the property to the lessee, even against the owner of the fee and is based on a privity of estate between lessor and lessee."

REFERENCES:

• Anderson, William C., A Dictionary of Law (Chicago: T. H. Flood and Company, 1889), page 607
• Darr v. Lone Star Industries Inc., 94 Cal. App. 3d 895 (1979)
• Fairbanks North Star v. Golden Heart Utilities, 13 P. 3d 263 (2000)
• Sweet, Charles, A Dictionary of English Law (London: Henry Sweet, 1882), page 479-480 [NOTE 1 and 2].