Leases for one year or less need no written agreement. Leases for more than a year must be in writing; if for life, signed, sealed and witnessed in the same manner as any other important document.

Leases for over three years must be recorded. No particular form is necessary.

If no agreement in writing for more than a year can be produced, the tenant holds the property from year to year at the will of the landlord. If there is no agreement as to time, the tenant, as a rule, holds from year to year.

A tenancy at will may be terminated by giving the tenant one month's notice in writing, requiring him to remove from the premises occupied.

A tenant is not responsible for taxes, unless it is so stated in the lease.

The tenant may underlet as much of the property as he desires, unless it is expressly forbidden in the lease. Tenants at will cannot underlet.

A married woman cannot lease her property under the common law, but this prohibition is removed by statute in most of the States. A husband cannot make a lease which will bind his wife's property after his death.

A lease made by a minor is not binding after the minor has attained his majority. It binds the lessee, however, unless the minor should release him. Should the minor receive rent after attaining his majority, the lease will be thereby ratified. A lease given by a guardian will not extend beyond the majority of the ward.

A new lease renders void a former lease.

In case there are no writings, the tenancy begins from the day possession is taken. Where there are writings and the time of commencement is not stated, the tenancy will be held to commence from the date of said writings.

Leases on mortgaged property, whereon the mortgage was given prior to the lease, terminate when the mortgage is foreclosed.

Where a tenant assigns his lease, even with the landlord's consent, he will remain liable for the rent unless his lease is surrendered or cancelled.

There are many special features of the law of landlord and tenant in relation to agricultural tenancy. Generally an outgoing tenant cannot sell or take away the manure. A tenant whose estate has terminated by an uncertain event which he could neither foresee nor control is entitled to the annual crop which he sowed while his estate continued, by the law of emblements. He may also, in certain cases, take the emblements or annual profits of the land after his tenancy has ended, and, unless restricted by some stipulation to the contrary, may remove such fixtures as he has erected during his occupation for convenience, profit or comfort; for, in general, what a tenant has added he may remove, if he can do so without injury to the premises, unless he has actually built it in so as to make it an integral part of what was there originally.

The following are immovable fixtures: Agricultural erections, fold-yard walls, cart house, barns fixed in the ground, beast house, carpenter shop, fuel house, pigeon house, pineries substantially fixed, wagon house, box borders not belonging to a gardener by trade, flowers, trees, hedges, ale-house bar, dressers, partitions, locks and keys, benches, affixes to the house, statue erected as an ornament to grounds, sun dial, chimney piece not ornamental, closets affixed to the house, conduits, conservatory, substantially affixed, doors, fruit trees if a tenant be not a nurseryman by trade, glass windows, hearths, millstones, looms substantially affixed to the floor of a factory, threshing machines fixed by bolts and screws to posts let into the ground.

DonT occupy premises until a written lease is in your possession, and don't depend on promises of a landlord unless they are part of such lease.

Don't accept a married woman as tenant unless the law of the State permit her to make an executory contract.

Don't think that you can legally eject sub-tenants unless you have given them notice of the tenant's forfeiture of his lease.

Don't make such improvements in premises occupied by you as the law would regard as immovable fixtures, unless you are willing to turn them over to the landlord when your lease expires. A building erected on foundations sunk into the ground would become part of the realty and thus belong to the landlord.

Don't think, however, that you have no right to remove trade fixtures erected by you.

Don't accept less than thirty days' notice when you rent by the month.

Don't forget that where premises are let for illegal use the law will not aid you in collecting arrears for rent.