A licence is permission to be on someone else's land — and that simple idea decides some of the most practical questions a solicitor faces. Is your client a tenant with real security, or a guest who can be asked to leave? Can a landowner remove an occupier today, or must they go to court first? Does a buyer take the land free of the person already living there? Getting these distinctions right is everyday work in residential, commercial, and property litigation.
This lesson builds your understanding step by step:
- Nature and Types of Licence — what a licence is, why it is a personal right, and the three main categories.
- Lease or Licence? — the hallmarks that turn an arrangement into a lease, whatever it is called.
- Revocation of Contractual Licences — when a licence can be ended, and what remedies follow.
- Licences and Third Parties — why a licence usually cannot bind a buyer of the land.
- Alternative Proprietary Routes — how estoppel or a constructive trust can give an occupier a right that does bind a purchaser.
- Protection from Eviction — the statutory safeguards for residential licensees, and who falls outside them.