Whether an occupier has a lease or only a licence determines how easily they can be removed and whether their right survives a sale of the land. This chapter starts with the nature of a licence and its main forms, bare and contractual, before turning to the lease/licence distinction, where exclusive possession rather than the parties' label decides the matter. It then examines when a contractual licence can lawfully be revoked and the remedies for wrongful revocation, why licences generally cannot bind third-party purchasers, and how proprietary estoppel may give a licensee a right that does. It ends with the statutory protection from eviction for residential licensees and the excluded licensees who fall outside it.
