Leases: are they still not really real?

TLDR: In this paper, the authors argue that the continued classification today of leases/tenancies as personalty reflects an uncritical perpetuation of this perception, a failure to reappraise their legal status and function in the context of today law and social relations concerned with land.

Abstract: This article seeks to show why, historically, the lease/tenancy were viewed as being peripheral to the scheme of land law, not perceived as part of ‘real property It suggests that the continued classification today of leases/tenancies as personalty reflects an uncritical perpetuation of this perception, a failure to reappraise their legal status and function in the context of today law and social relations concerned with land. More generally, it touches on a possible need to reappraise many of the underlying, historically derived schemata and structures of today's property law. Finally, as the offer of a small step in the reappraisal of the place of lease/tenancies, it argues that today, in law, they can and should properly be classified (together with freeholds) as part of real property.