25 Land tenure

The Flexible Land Tenure System (FLTS) is an innovative concept to provide affordable security of tenure to inhabitants in informal settlements in Namibia.

In common law systems, land tenure is the legal regime in which land is owned by an individual, who is said to "hold" the land. It determines who can use land, for how long and under what conditions. Tenure may be based both on official laws and policies, and on informal customs. In other words, land tenure system implies a system according to which land is held by an individual or the actual tiller of the land. It determines the owners rights and responsibilities in connection with their holding. The French verb "tenir" means "to hold" and "tenant" is the present participle of "tenir". The sovereign monarch, known as The Crown, held land in its own right. All private owners are either its tenants or sub-tenants. Tenure signifies the relationship between tenant and lord, not the relationship between tenant and land. Over history, many different forms of land ownership, i.e., ways of owning land, have been established.

Aboriginal title is a common law doctrine that the land rights of indigenous peoples to customary tenure persist after the assumption of sovereignty under settler colonialism. The requirements of proof for the recognition of aboriginal title, the content of aboriginal title, the methods of extinguishing aboriginal title, and the availability of compensation in the case of extinguishment vary significantly by jurisdiction. Nearly all jurisdictions are in agreement that aboriginal title is inalienable, and that it may be held either individually or collectively.

The Blacks Camp is a heritage-listed former post-contact Aboriginal Australian occupation site and now residence, agricultural land and vacant land located at University Road, Wellington in the Dubbo Regional Council local government area of New South Wales, Australia. It is also known as Black's Camp and The Spring Flats. The property is owned by New South Wales Land and Property Information (LPI), an agency of the Government of New South Wales. The property was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 18 November 2011.

The Blacktown Native Institution Site is the heritage-listed site of a former residential school for Aboriginal and Māori children at Richmond Road, Oakhurst, City of Blacktown, New South Wales, Australia. It was built from 1822. The site has also been known as Parramatta Native Institute, Black Town Institute, The Blacktown Site, Lloydhurst, BNI, Epping Estate, Epping Forest Estate and Native Institution Centre. The property is owned by Blacktown City Council, Department of Planning and Infrastructure and Landcom. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 18 November 2011.

Burgage is a medieval land term used in Great Britain and Ireland, well established by the 13th century.

Copyhold tenure was a form of customary tenure of land common in England from the Middle Ages. The land was held according to the custom of the manor, and the mode of landholding took its name from the fact that the "title deed" received by the tenant was a copy of the relevant entry in the manorial court roll. A tenant – or mesne lord – who held land in this way was legally known as a copyholder.

Crofting is a form of land tenure and small-scale food production particular to the Scottish Highlands, the islands of Scotland, and formerly on the Isle of Man. Within the 19th century townships, individual crofts were established on the better land, and a large area of poorer-quality hill ground was shared by all the crofters of the township for grazing of their livestock.

Dillegrout is a dish traditionally presented at the coronations of kings and queens of England by the holders of the manor of Addington in a kitchen serjeanty. It is generally thought to be a soup or stew made from almond milk, capon, sugar, and spices, but a porridge-like dish of other ingredients has been described. Dillegrout was first presented in 1068 at the coronation of Matilda of Flanders, wife of William the Conqueror, and its final presentation was at the coronation of George IV in 1821.

In the kingdom of England, a feudal barony or barony by tenure was the highest degree of feudal land tenure, namely per baroniam, under which the land-holder owed the service of being one of the king's barons. The duties owed by and the privileges granted to feudal barons are not exactly defined, but they involved the duty of providing soldiers to the royal feudal army on demand by the king, and the privilege of attendance at the king's feudal court, the precursor of parliament.

Under the English feudal system several different forms of land tenure existed, each effectively a contract with differing rights and duties attached thereto. Such tenures could be either free-hold, signifying that they were hereditable or perpetual, or non-free where the tenancy terminated on the tenant's death or at an earlier specified period. The main varieties are as follows:

A fief was the central element of feudalism. It consisted of heritable property or rights granted by an overlord to a vassal who held it in fealty in return for a form of feudal allegiance and service, usually given by the personal ceremonies of homage and fealty. The fees were often lands or revenue-producing real property held in feudal land tenure: these are typically known as fiefs or fiefdoms. However, not only land but anything of value could be held in fee, including governmental office, rights of exploitation such as hunting or fishing, monopolies in trade, and tax farms.

Knight-service was a form of feudal land tenure under which a knight held a fief or estate of land termed a knight's fee from an overlord conditional on him as tenant performing military service for his overlord.

A land terrier is a record system for an institution's land and property holdings. It differs from a land register in that it is maintained for the organisation's own needs and may not be publicly accessible.

Paramount is the highest authority, or that being of the greatest importance. The word was first used as a term of feudal law, of the overlord, the lord paramount, who held his fief from no superior lord, and was thus opposed to a mesne lord, one who held fief from a superior. Those who held their fiefs from one who was not a lord paramount were given the correlative term "paravail",. The word was confused by English lawyers with "avail," help, assistance, profit, and applied to the actual working tenant of the land, the lowest tenant or occupier.

The open-field system was the prevalent agricultural system in much of Europe during the Middle Ages and lasted into the 20th century in Russia, Iran, and Turkey. Under the open-field system, each manor or village had two or three large fields, usually several hundred acres each, which were divided into many narrow strips of land. The strips or selions were cultivated by individuals or peasant families, often called tenants or serfs. The holdings of a manor also included woodland and pasture areas for common usage and fields belonging to the lord of the manor and the religious authorities, usually Roman Catholics in medieval Western Europe. The farmers customarily lived in individual houses in a nucleated village with a much larger manor house and church nearby. The open-field system necessitated co-operation among the inhabitants of the manor.

Quia Emptores is a statute passed by the Parliament of England in 1290 during the reign of Edward I that prevented tenants from alienating their lands to others by subinfeudation, instead requiring all tenants who wished to alienate their land to do so by substitution. The statute, along with its companion statute Quo Warranto also passed in 1290, was intended to remedy land ownership disputes and consequent financial difficulties that had resulted from the decline of the traditional feudal system in England during the High Middle Ages. The name Quia Emptores derives from the first two words of the statute in its original mediaeval Latin, which can be translated as "because the buyers". Its long title is A Statute of our Lord The King, concerning the Selling and Buying of Land. It is also cited as the Statute of Westminster III, one of many English and British statutes with that title.

Run rig, or runrig, also known as rig-a-rendal, was a system of land tenure practised in Scotland, particularly in the Highlands and islands. It was used on open fields for arable farming.

The Scottish Land Commission was established by the Scottish Government following the passage of the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2016 by the Scottish Parliament; the Commission also incorporates the work of the Tenant Farming Commissioner. The Lands Commissioners, who constitute the Commission, have functions relating to land in Scotland, so that they address issues which relate to ownership of land, land rights, management of land, and use of land. The Tenant Farming Commissioner has the aim of improving the relationship between tenant farmers and land owners, and can create codes of practice, provide practical guidance, and must consult on such matters. The Tenant Farming Commissioner cannot be an agricultural landlord or agricultural tenant, and will develop codes of practice which are in addition to the law and the jurisdiction of the Scottish Land Court.

Under feudalism in France and England during the Middle Ages, tenure by serjeanty was a form of tenure in return for a specified duty other than standard knight-service.

Sharecropping is a legal arrangement with regard to agricultural land in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on that land.

Socage was one of the feudal duties and land tenure forms in the feudal system. Farmers held land in exchange for clearly defined, fixed payments made at specified intervals to feudal lords. The lord was therefore obligated to provide certain services, such as protection, to the farmer and other duties to the Crown. Payments usually took the form of cash, but occasionally could be made with goods.

In English law, subinfeudation is the practice by which tenants, holding land under the king or other superior lord, carved out new and distinct tenures in their turn by sub-letting or alienating a part of their lands.

In medieval and early modern Europe, the term tenant-in-chief denoted a person who held his lands under various forms of feudal land tenure directly from the king or territorial prince to whom he did homage, as opposed to holding them from another nobleman or senior member of the clergy. The tenure was one which denoted great honour, but also carried heavy responsibilities. The tenants-in-chief were originally responsible for providing knights and soldiers for the king's feudal army.

Yeoman was first documented in mid-14th century England, referring to the middle ranks of servants in an English royal or noble household. Yeomanry was the name applied to groups of freeborn commoners engaged as household guards, or raised as an army during times of war. The 14th century also witnessed the rise of the yeoman longbow archer during the Hundred Years War, and the yeoman outlaws celebrated in the Robin Hood ballads. Yeomen also joined the English Navy during The Hundred Years War as seamen and archers.